Task Difficulty Of TEM4-SET From Test-Takers' Perspective

This study sets out to investigate test-takers' perceptions of task difficulty of TEM4-SET in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity, and to explore factors affecting speaking task difficulty yielded by test-takers' feedback in the form of survey questionnaire and interview after the test. Statistical tools such as SPSS and FACETS reveal that Discussion is more difficult than Individual Presentation which is not significantly associated with test-takers' perceptions. We should not rely too heavily on test-taker feedback although they can predict correctly their overall performance and fluency of TEM4-SET. It also shows that there is a negative correlation between task difficulty and accuracy of performance, which confirms Skehan's (1996;1998a) finding in terms of the relationship between task difficulty and accuracy. Overall, the findings suggest that although perception of task difficulty can provide some insight into the issue of task difficulty, it is an end product of interaction between task characteristics, performance conditions and test-taker attributes.