• Journal of the military operations research society of Korea
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 1984

Military personnel encounter a variety of noise environments. During exercises, high intensity noise levels are often encountered. Twenty-four subjects were required to respond to symbols presented under two levels of task difficulty, two levels of presentation rate, two levels of display orientation, and three levels of noise intensity. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether noise intensity and display orientation had any effect on a short-term memory task. Results showed that continuous white noise at intensity levels of 30, 85, and 105 db had no effect on the shortterm memory task. Presentation rate and task difficulty demonstrated a significant relationship with task performance as did their two-way interaction. This two-way interaction between presentation rate and task difficulty exhibited a different pattern for the two levels of display orientation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.356-366
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze whether the required cognitive levels of the current 6th graders' science textbooks conform to the children's cognitive levels and to examine the students' sensed psychological difficulty of the current science textbooks. The eighty five students (boy: 39, girl: 46) from one elementary school were participated in this study. The results of the study are as follows. First, the 2/3 out of the contents in the six graders' science textbooks require concrete level of operation and the 1/3 out of the contents in the textbooks requires the formal level of operation. So the 70% students at the concrete operational level are likely to undergo difficulties with the 1/3 contents in the textbooks. Second, the students' psychological difficulty on the science textbooks is relatively low (approximately two out of five points) and there is not any special pattern between the cognitive level of the textbooks and the students' psychological difficulty of the textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Clinical Nursing Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.86-98
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• 2012

Purpose: The present study was conducted with the aim of developing a training manual for operation room nurses through an examination of nursing actions in terms of the frequency of performance, importance, and the levels of difficulty. The participants were recruited from the five university-affiliated hospitals according to one's career ladders, resulting in getting 181 OR nurses enrolled. Methods: Researchers developed a questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale which measuring OR nurses' actions, importance, and the levels of difficulty. The frequencies of performance, importance and the levels of difficulty of nursing action were compared according to their career ladders using one-way ANOVA. Results: The frequencies of performance showed significant differences in 26 items according to the participants' career ladders; the importance in 6 items; and the levels of difficulty in 19 items among the OR nurses' actions. Conclusion: Given the fact that the significant differences were shown in the frequencies of performance, importance, and the levels of difficulty in nursing action across differing work experience, continuous development and application of job training based on one's work experience seem crucial in practice.

• Korean Journal of Adult Nursing
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.200-208
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• 2008

Purpose: The purposes of the study were to understand the levels of older adults' perceived stresses in terms of family relationship, physical health, financial difficulty, death of family members, and household environment, and to identify the influences of the stresses on their suicidal ideation. Methods: The subjects were 302 older adults residing in Daegu, Korea. The data were collected by questionnaires between March and April 2007. Results: Older adults perceived the highest level of stress from the death of family members and had high levels of stresses from physical health, family relationships, financial difficulty, and household environment in order. The variables influencing suicidal ideation were stresses from family relationships, physical health, and financial difficulty. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is recommended that nurses provide in-depth screening of suicide risk for older adults who visit general health care settings through the identification of the levels of stresses in terms of family relationships, physical health, and financial difficulty. It is further suggested to provide collaborative interventions between primary health care providers and psychiatric professionals for suicide prevention and treatment in older adults.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.293-305
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• 2016

Objective: This study aims to measure cognitive load levels by analyzing the EEG of Koreans and foreigners, when they read a Korean text with care selected by level from the grammar and vocabulary aspects, and compare the cognitive load levels through quantitative values. The study results can be utilized as basic data for more scientific approach, when Korean texts or books are developed, and an evaluation method is built, when the foreigners encounter them for learning or an assignment. Background: Based on 2014, the number of the foreign students studying in Korea was 84,801, and they increase annually. Most of them are from Asian region, and they come to Korea to enter a university or a graduate school in Korea. Because those foreign students aim to learn within Universities in Korea, they receive Korean education from their preparation for study in Korea. To enter a university in Korea, they must acquire grade 4 or higher level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), or they need to complete a certain educational program at each university's affiliated language institution. In such a program, the learners of the Korean language receive Korean education based on texts, except speaking domain, and the comprehension of texts can determine their academic achievements in studying after they enter their desired schools (Jeon, 2004). However, many foreigners, who finish a language course for the short-term, and need to start university study, cannot properly catch up with university classes requiring expertise with the vocabulary and grammar levels learned during the language course. Therefore, reading education, centered on a strategy to understand university textbooks regarded as top level reading texts to the foreigners, is necessary (Kim and Shin, 2015). This study carried out an experiment from a perspective that quantitative data on the readers of the main player of reading education and teaching materials need to be secured to back up the need for reading education for university study learners, and scientifically approach educational design. Namely, this study grasped the difficulty level of reading through the measurement of cognitive loads indicated in the reading activity of each text by dividing the difficulty of a teaching material (book) into eight levels, and the main player of reading into Koreans and foreigners. Method: To identify cognitive loads indicated upon reading Korean texts with care by Koreans and foreigners, this study recruited 16 participants (eight Koreans and eight foreigners). The foreigners were limited to the language course students studying the intermediate level Korean course at university-affiliated language institutions within Seoul Metropolitan Area. To identify cognitive load, as they read a text by level selected from the Korean books (difficulty: eight levels) published by King Sejong Institute (Sejonghakdang.org), the EEG sensor was attached to the frontal love (Fz) and occipital lobe (Oz). After the experiment, this study carried out a questionnaire survey to measure subjective evaluation, and identified the comprehension and difficulty on grammar and words. To find out the effects on schema that may affect text comprehension, this study controlled the Korean texts, and measured EEG and subjective satisfaction. Results: To identify brain's cognitive load, beta band was extracted. As a result, interactions (Fz: p =0.48; Oz: p =0.00) were revealed according to Koreans and foreigners, and difficulty of the text. The cognitive loads of Koreans, the readers whose mother tongue is Korean, were lower in reading Korean texts than those of the foreigners, and the foreigners' cognitive loads became higher gradually according to the difficulty of the texts. From the text four, which is intermediate level in difficulty, remarkable differences started to appear in comparison of the Koreans and foreigners in the beginner's level text. In the subjective evaluation, interactions were revealed according to the Koreans and foreigners and text difficulty (p =0.00), and satisfaction was lower, as the difficulty of the text became higher. Conclusion: When there was background knowledge in reading, namely schema was formed, the comprehension and satisfaction of the texts were higher, although higher levels of vocabulary and grammar were included in the texts than those of the readers. In the case of a text in which the difficulty of grammar was felt high in the subjective evaluation, foreigners' cognitive loads were also high, which shows the result of the loads' going up higher in proportion to the increase of difficulty. This means that the grammar factor functions as a stress factor to the foreigners' reading comprehension. Application: This study quantitatively evaluated the cognitive loads of Koreans and foreigners through EEG, based on readers and the text difficulty, when they read Korean texts. The results of this study can be used for making Korean teaching materials or Korean education content and topic selection for foreigners. If research scope is expanded to reading process using an eye-tracker, the reading education program and evaluation method for foreigners can be developed on the basis of quantitative values.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.60-65
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• 1992

As many industrial workers have been involved with computer terminal tasks, for example, monitor ing, inspection, or computer da4a entry etc., concerns for difficulty evaluation of computer terminal tasks are Increased. This study provides that eyeblink can be used as a means of difficulty evaluation of a computer terminal lask. Four subjects without color blindness are asked to perform the monitoring task of the binary choice type under five levels of task difficulty. In each task, eyeblink rates and eyeblink interval times were measured from the subjects. The results show that the eyeblink rate does decrease with an Increase in task difficulty. In addition, it was found that both eyeblink interval time and eyeblink Interval time variation increased with an increase in task difficulty. It was concluded that the change of eyeblink rate, eyeblink interval time and eyeblink interval time and eyeblink interval time variation could be regarded as a generalized response to the imposition of task difficulty.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.10 no.1 s.25
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• pp.13-31
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• 2006

This paper uses a composite difficulties model developed by the author (Bao 2002a, 2002b) to compare the characteristics of two sample mathematics tests in China and UK. The initial findings were described through five difficulty factors on several difficulty levels. According the initial findings, the author then tries to analyze the styles of mathematics problem-solving and the curriculum backgrounds in these two countries.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.157-168
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• 2015

The difficulty of the game is closely related to the fun of the game. However, it is not easy to determine the appropriate level of difficulty of the game. In most cases, human playtesting is required. But even so, it is still hard to quantitatively evaluate difficulty of the game. Thus, if we perform quantitative evaluation of the difficulty automatically it will be very helpful in game developments. In this paper, we use a path finding algorithm to evaluate difficulty of exploration in a game level. Exploration is a basic attribute in common video games and it represents the overall difficulty of the game level. We also optimize the proposed evaluation algorithm by using previous exploration histories when available area in an game level is dynamically expanded and the new search is required.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.73-81
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to observe the brain activity patterns during visual oddball tasks with two difficulty levels by the analysis of high-density event-related potential (ERP). Along with conventional statistical analysis of averaged ERP waveforms, we applied independent component analysis (ICA) for the individual, single-trial analysis and verified its effectiveness. We could identify multiple ERP components such as early visual components (P1, N1), and two components which seem to be important task-related components and showed difficulty-dependent variability (P2, P300). The P2 was found around central region at $180{\sim}220ms$, and the P300 was found globally at $300{\sim}500ms$ poststimulus. As the task became difficult, the P2 amplitude increased, and the P300 amplitude decreased. After single-trial ERPs were decomposed into multiple independent components (ICs), several ICs resulting from P2 and P300 sources were identified. These ICs were projected onto scalp electrodes and the projected ICs were statistically compared according to two task difficulties. For most subjects, the results obtained from single-trial/individual analysis using ICA gave the tendencies of amplitude change that are similar to the averaged ERP analysis for most subjects. The temporal pattern and number of ICs corresponding to ${\mu}$ rhythm was not dependent on the task difficulty. It seems that the motor response was not affected by the task difficulty.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.31-68
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• 2006

The present research investigates the acquisition of the English locative alternation by Korean EFL learners, which poses a learnability paradox, taking Pinker's framework of learnability theory as its basis. It addresses two questions (1) how lexical knowledge is represented initially and at different levels of interlanguage development and (2) what kinds of difficulty Korean learners find in the acquisition of English locative verbs and their constructions. Three groups of learners at different proficiency levels with a control group of English native speakers are examined by two instruments: elicited production task and grammaticality judgment task. According to different levels of proficiency, the learners exhibit gradual sensitivity to a change-of-state meaning and obtain complete perception of the meanings of locative verbs (manner-of-motion and change-of-state) and their constructions. Overgeneralization errors are observed in their performance. The errors are due to misinterpretations of particular lexical items in conjunction with the universal linking rules. More fundamental cause of difficulty is accounted for by partial use of learning mechanisms, caused by insufficient L2 input.