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EMCQG stem-indicativeness and distractor-difference item-difficulty estimation method

Research Method · All research methods
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Description

EMCQG's difficulty calculator estimates question difficulty from the ranked strength of relations rather than axiomatic concept similarity. Stem indicativeness (stemInd, from sympInd and histInd) measures how strongly stem entities indicate the key; option difference (optDiff, from squared distractor differences disDiff) measures how close distractors are to the key. "The question difficulty is based on an average of the stem entities’ difficulty and the option entities’ difficulty." Squaring distractor differences weights very-similar distractors more heavily, in the absence of an empirically validated coefficient.

Accounts

  • EMCQG's difficulty model: question difficulty computed from stem indicativeness and distractor-key rank differences: EMCQG's difficulty calculator estimates question difficulty from the ranked strength of relations rather than axiomatic concept similarity. Stem indicativeness (stemInd, from sympInd and histInd) measures how strongly stem entities indicate the key; option difference (optDiff, from squared distractor differences disDiff) measures how close distractors are to the key. "The question difficulty is based on an average of the stem entities’ difficulty and the option entities’ difficulty." Squaring distractor differences weights very-similar distractors more heavily, in the absence of an empirically validated coefficient. (J. Leo et al. (2019))

Claims

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Key Sources

  • J. Leo, G. Kurdi, N. Matentzoglu, B. Parsia, U. Sattler, S. Forge, G. Donato, W. Dowling. (2019). Ontology-Based Generation of Medical, Multi-term MCQs. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-018-00172-w
Page metadata
Field Value
type research-method
id emcqg-stem-indicativeness-and-distractor-difference-item-difficulty-estimation-method
title EMCQG stem-indicativeness and distractor-difference item-difficulty estimation method
description EMCQG's difficulty calculator estimates question difficulty from the ranked strength of relations rather than axiomatic concept similarity.
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-27
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