Estimation of users' subjective difficulty of WEB based English listening tests

Abstract

This paper proposes an estimation method of subjective difficulty of Web based English listening tests from Mahalanobis distance of users' eye movement characteristic parameters. The eye movements characteristics used to distinguish emotions were obtained by examinations of the 10 subjects (5 male, 5 female). The estimated subjective difficulty was measured time sequentially. So that, the periods of "ease" emotion and "difficulty" emotion were selected. The 6 eye movement characteristic parameters used for estimation of users' subjective difficulty it as follows: (a) average eye movement velocity (b) total direction of gaze X (c) total direction of gaze Y (d) standard deviation of total direction of gaze X (e) standard deviation of total direction of gaze Y (g) count of blinks. The coincidence rate of "ease" was 85.1% and "difficulty" was 87.5%. © 2011 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.