Difficulty Levels and Characteristics of TOEFL Listening Items for Korean EFL Learners

The study aims to investigate Korean university students listening achievements in an English proficiency test and suggest several aspects in need to improve in for schools. The researcher examines which TOEFL testing items have high, medium, and low percentages of correct answers, and what characteristics correspond to these groups. 61 Korean university students in a local city in Korea participated in a computer-mediated test. 36 out of the 61 participants also participated in an interview for immediate reflection on what they thought during the test. Descriptive statistics and correlation analyses showed that the students experienced the most difficulty with testing items requiring summarizing of presented information and understanding of relationships among concepts. This interpretation was confirmed by the interview data. We suggest that intensive instructional intervention, including material development and classroom activities, focus more on high level information processing such as summary and integration for Korean EFL university students. Another suggestion was made that EFL listening testing items for the students be developed to include more integrative information processing.