Questionnaire designers use readability measures to ensure that questions can be understood by the target population. The most common measure is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, but other formulas exist. This article compares six different readability measures across 150 questions in a self-administered questionnaire, finding notable variation in…

Teaching students to enjoy reading is important in middle level education; however, middle school students with emotional behavioral disabilities (EBD) frequently struggle with reading skills and frequently display motivational deficits during reading instruction. The purpose of this study was to examine if the presence/absence of a classroom pet…

Background: Readability tests are indicators that measure how easy a document can be read and understood. Simple, but very often ignored, readability statistics cannot only provide information about the level of difficulty of the readability of particular documents but also can increase an evaluator's credibility. Purpose: The purpose of this…

Reports results of a survey on the readability of 12 recently published business communication textbooks. Shows that important differences in readability do exist and that the majority of texts were within or below the lower end of the undergraduate-level reading range. (PD)

This book is a guide to the evaluation and development of textbooks that focuses on the research on which they are based to the writing of the text. It also explores research into textbook effectiveness and provides an overview of the research in the field. The chapters are: (1) "Respondents' Opinions"; (2) "Evaluation of Textbooks by…

A study investigated the readability of current laws for Canadian francophones and anglophones. The 63 subjects were asked to read a variety of brief legal texts available in parallel styles in both languages and to answer questions about the texts' content. Subjects were also surveyed about their preference for a formal or vulgarized style of…

The purpose of this book is to introduce the research on readability, defined here as reading ease. The first part of the book covers how people read. A series of national literacy surveys show that the average person in the U.S. and most other countries are adults of limited reading skills. For example, the average adult in the U.S. reads at the…

Vocabulary acquisition traditionally has been a struggle for students with special learning needs. This study involved an eleven year old fifth grade student with learning disabilities in reading and writing and limited English proficiency. Assistive technology assistance was provided from the Franklin Language Master 6000b and Microsoft's Power…