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…

Much of the contemporary literature around assessment practices in higher education focuses on assessment quality and its fitness for purpose. However, there is limited research around student comprehension of written assessment task descriptions and their understanding of the task itself. The purpose of this study was to examine a number of…

In recent years, readability formulas have gained new prominence as a basis for selecting texts for learning and assessment. Variables that quantitative tools count (e.g., word frequency, sentence length) provide valid measures of text complexity insofar as they accurately predict representative and high-quality criteria. The longstanding…

This study investigated the complexity of leveled passages used in four classroom reading assessments. A total of 167 passages leveled for Grades 1-6 from these assessments were analyzed using four analytical tools of text complexity. More traditional, two-factor measures of text complexity found a general trend of fairly consistent across-grade…

The purpose of this article is to understand the function, logic, and impact of qualitative systems for analyzing text complexity, focusing on their benefits and imperfections. We identified two primary functions for their use: (a) to match texts to reader ability so that readers read books that are within their grasp, and (b) to unearth, and then…

The "Common Core State Standards/English Language Arts" include the ability to become increasingly more capable with complex text over the school career, redirecting attention to the measurement of text complexity. While suggesting multiple criteria, the Standards offer a single measure of text complexity--Lexiles. Additional…

Reading materials are considered having high readability if readers are interested to read the materials, understand the content of the materials and able to read the materials fluently. In contrast, reading materials with low readability discourage readers from reading the materials, create difficulties for readers to understand the content of…

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…

Objectives: We compared two non-alternative methods to assess the readability and learning of easy-to-read educational health materials co-written by physicians, educators and citizens. Methods: Data from seven easy-to-read materials were analyzed. Readability formulae, and ad hoc data on readability and learning were also computed. Results: The…

Validates the college-level designation of the Fry Graph using comparative validity data. (AEA)

The article examines the available means of determining the readability of written materials and reviews the empirical evidence that indicates consideration of syntactic complexity in determining readability. Problems with readability formulas are pointed out. Guidelines for using readability formulas that take syntactic complexity into account…

Proposes that documents such as contracts, policies, etc. can be evaluated adequately only by analyzing how they are used by consumers and then designing a testing approach that reflects their usability rather than their readability, difficulty, etc. Tested versions of a loan contract to compare differences among evaluation procedures. (PD)

Describes the Luiten, Ames, Bradley Readability Variation Method for estimating the variation within a text. Concludes that it is practical and relatively accurate. (HOD)

Although the cloze procedure was shown to be satisfactorily reliable with deaf Ss, cloze scores did not relate to the predicted passage difficulty; therefore, the validity of the cloze procedure as a readability measure was not confirmed. (Author/DLS)

Examines the arguments against the indiscriminate use of readability formulas. (FL)