The Relative Contribution of Language Complexity to Second Language Video Lectures Difficulty Assessment

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Abstract

Abstract Although core in the teaching of academic language skills, little research to date has investigated what makes video‐recorded lectures difficult for language learners. As part of a larger program to develop automated videotext complexity measures, this study reports on selected dimensions of linguistic complexity to understand how they contribute to overall videotext difficulty. Based on the ratings of English language learners of 320 video lectures, we built regression models to predict subjective estimates of video lecture difficulty. The results of our analysis demonstrate that a 4‐component partial least square regression model explains 52% of the variance in video difficulty and significantly outperformed a baseline model in predicting the difficulty of videos in an out‐of‐sample testing set. The results of our study point to the use of linguistic complexity features for predicting overall videotext difficulty and raise the possibility of developing automated systems for measuring video difficulty, akin to those already available for estimating the readability of written materials.

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