Finding the appropriate instructional text from question performance evaluation : A prototype interface

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of prototype software which would interface with instructional text so that the appropriate text could be presented on the basis of responses to multiple choice questions. Ease of implementation from a user point of view and potential generalizability to formal text or CAI materials were considered during the development. The text is analyzed to determine key words which are placed in three lists — concept, quantifier, and sequence/level. The software analyzes the text to determine the line location of the words and create a tree structure of the word locations. Questions are analyzed to find the key words which appear in the three key word lists and the text appropriate to the question is located by attempting to find the best match for word combinations which occur in the text and the question. The software can locate text appropriate to a specific question for highly structured, relatively short text. Deficiencies in software performance are identified to provide the basis for further enhancements.