A readability comparison of psychology, sociology, and physics introductory textbooks from the years 1860 to 1913 and 1963-1969 was made to discover if psychology has become as "difficult" ("scientific") as physics. (JH)

Discusses a study to evaluate student understanding of and interest in general psychology textbooks in college level introductory psychology course. Findings indicate that students generally found a high correlation between readability and human interest. (DB)

Twenty-five introductory college psychology textbooks are analyzed for terms most frequently used, the textbooks which employed the largest number of frequently used terms; similarity among textbooks; and the relationship between readability and technical thoroughness of the texts. (Author/JR)

Reports on two studies that assessed the interchangeability of logical and empirical estimates of readability and human interest for college-level introductory psychology texts published between 1977 and 1988. Uses Flesch's procedures to obtain logical scores and student ratings to obtain empirical scores. Finds that correlations are too low to…

Description of the method and results of a study that evaluated introductory psychology textbooks according to their human interest and readability. It updates a previous study. (ND)

Anonymous criticism of a reading consultant's readability analysis of the authors' introductory psychology textbook. (ND)

Undergraduate students enrolled in a Principles of Psychology II course were asked to rate selections from introductory psychology texts for reading ease. These student ratings were then compared with the ratings obtained using the Flesch readability formula. Student ratings did not agree very well with the Flesch scores. (RM)

Discusses factors that psychology professors should consider when selecting a textbook for introductory courses. These include readability, human interest level, comprehensiveness, and authoritative accuracy of the material. (RM)

Comparison of evaluation method and results of ten introductory psychology textbooks. They were evaluated according to both Flesch formulas and student opinions on both readability and interest levels. (ND)

Eighty college students read textbook passages that either included marginal inserts to signal key concepts or did not include these inserts. Signaling key concepts enhanced performance on content quizzes overall and on subsets of items assessing signaled material. Performance was not affected on subsets of items for nonsignaled content. Students…