The Influence of Various Degrees of the Cognitive Complexity of Tasks on Undergraduate Students’ Listening Comprehension Performance: Simultaneous Investigation of ± Intentional Reasoning Demand and ± Few Steps

This study was conducted with the aim of shedding light on how the gradual increase of cognitive task complexity influences high proficiency undergraduate students’ listening comprehension and the role of proficiency in mediating cognitive task complexity effect. Another aim of this study was investigating the degree of equality between students’ perceived task difficulty and the theoretical expression of task complexity. To that end, high and low proficiency female students studying at a non-profit university in Tehran were selected based on their performance on the Oxford Placement Test. They were asked to perform simple non-intentional reasoning and few-step tasks, complex non-intentional reasoning and many-step tasks, and more complex intentional reasoning and many-step tasks in sequence during 3 sessions based on Robinson’s SSARC (stabilize, simplify, automatize, reconstruct, and complexify) model suggestion and express their perception of task difficulty after performing tasks. Results demonstrated that there was a statistically significant difference between high proficiency participants’ performance on simple, complex and more complex tasks and between high and low proficiency participants’ performances on these three tasks. The equality of participants’ perception of task difficulty and the theoretical expression of task complexity was not confirmed. The findings of this study can be used by language teachers, task designers, and test developers to decide on the appropriate degree of complexity of tasks.