A Technique for Determining the Relative Difficulty of Word Meanings among Elementary School Children
In order to determine the relative difficulty of a list of word concepts, it becomes neces sary to know whether or not children experi ence difficulty in understanding the idea con veyed by the word symbol. The importance of this fact is shown by the desire to study word meanings on the part of many outstand ing educational experimentalists. A very concise expression of what has been done in this field is given by Dolch1. Kelley2 found that the multiple-choice type of test is the most valid and reliable instrument at present by which to determine the knowledge of words. However, the construction of a mul tiple-choice test in vocabulary which would involve from ten to twenty thousand words, or even one thousand words, is too tremen dous an undertaking to be practical. This makes the subject of the relative difficulty of word meanings an impractical one unless a different technique can be used for testing word difficulty.