International Journal of Changes in Education - Research Article 2025 - Discovering Levels of Cognitive Demand in Tests Developed by Iranian High School English Teachers Across Grades

Sep 20, 2026

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Despite the significance of the cognitive load of educational procedures, its status quo in teacher-made tests has remained largely uncharted. This study investigated the interplay between cognitive demand levels of test items and students’ academic levels. English language tests from Iranian high schools across grades 10–12 were coded for cognitive demand using a scheme grounded in Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix. Results indicated dominance of low cognitive demand categories and limited representation of high-demand items across grades.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages10

Reading Time25 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

1. Introduction

Cognitive demand in language testing

Rationale for analyzing cognitive load in test items

Received: 12 August 2024 | Revised: 29 November 2024 | Accepted: 3 March 2025 | Published online: 24 March 2025 International Journal of Changes in Education RESEARCH ARTICLE 2025, Vol. 00(00) 1–10 DOI: 10.47852/bonviewIJCE52024077 Discovering Levels of Cognitive Demand in Tests Developed by Iranian High School English Teachers Across Grades | Ali Ghezelbash1, Iman Alizadeh2,* and Hoda Divsar1
1 Department ofTEFL, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran
2 English Language Department, School of Medicine, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran | | --- | | Abstract: Despite the significance of the cognitive load of educational procedures, its status quo in teacher-made tests has remained largely uncharted. This study investigated the interplay between cognitive demand levels (CDL) of test items and students’ academic levels. Using the content analysis method, English language tests developed by Iranian high school teachers across three grades (10 through 12) were collected, and a scheme was developed to code the CDL of the tests. The coding scheme was developed based on the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix. Three trained coders coded the tests using the piloted and validated scheme. The results showed that the low CDLs of“remembering,”“understanding,” and “applying” constituted a large proportion (89.49%), while “analyzing,” “evaluating,” and “creating,” as the high CDLs comprised a small number (10.51%) of the test items. Grade 12 and grade 11 tests contained the most frequent high and low CDLs, respectively. In all grades,“understanding” was the most frequent level, and “creating” was the least frequent level. The trend of remembering and creating was normal, understanding and analyzing was descending, and applying and evaluating showed variation across the grades. The study concludes that the tests predominantly required low CDLs and were not developed based on a measure of cognitive demand balancing and/or regulating low and high CDLs across the grades. It recommends that test developers use a cognitive demand guide specifying the underlying nature of tasks required in the tests, the complexity of the expressions and information presented in the tests, and the choice of test item stem format and response format to regulate the cognitive demand of tests for different school grades.
Keywords: cognitive demand, language, tests, high schools | 1. Introduction Language testing involves considerations of measuring language knowledge and designing appropriate procedures for measuring this knowledge [1] . Moreover, language tests involve test takers’cognitive processes, which formulate and structure information for conceptual and procedural understandings necessary for successful completion of assessment tasks [2] . Moreover, the development of students’ cognitive domain is one of the primary goals of education systems [3] . The specification of the content of instruction and the determination of assessment components of students’ learning in relation to the cognitive domain with an eye to the student’s level of cognitive engagement and academic abilities have proved critical [4] . Different test items require varying levels of cognitive processing from test takers. Furthermore, a test for different levels of education should cover different cognitive levels to accommodate the different capabilities of learners. Stein et al. [5] maintain that different tasks cause varying levels of cognitive demand in students, which helps them think creatively and judgmentally. The levels of *Corresponding author: ImanAlizadeh, English Language Department, School of Medicine, Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Rasht, Iran. Email: [iman_alizadeh96@gums.ac.ir](iman_alizadeh96@gums.ac.ir) cognitive demand may be a variable of students’ levels of cognitive development, necessitating the development of appropriate tasks to reflect different levels of cognit

FAQs

What does the study examine about teacher-made language tests?

It examines how cognitive demand levels of test items relate to students’ academic levels across grades 10 to 12.

How were cognitive demand levels coded in the study?

Using content analysis and a coding scheme based on Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, and Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix, coded by trained coders.

What were the main findings about low vs. high cognitive demand items?

Low cognitive demand categories (remembering, understanding, applying) formed the majority (89.49%), while high cognitive demand categories (analyzing, evaluating, creating) made up a smaller portion (10.51%).

What does the study recommend for test developers?

Developers should use a cognitive demand guide that specifies task nature, complexity of presented information, and the choice of item stem and response formats to regulate cognitive demand across grades.

Sep 20, 2026

Uploaded by Marry