Assessing Readability

Klare, George R.

doi:10.2307/747086

Cited by 340 publications

(102 citation statements)

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“…Both texts were at a moderate, 9th-grade level in terms of textual difficulty on the Flesch-Kincaid scale (Klare, 1974). Each text was presented one sentence at a time, and participants used the space bar to move to the next sentence.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension

et al. 2016

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When reading, we frequently find ourselves thinking about something other than the text. These attentional lapses, known as mind wandering (MW), are negatively correlated with text comprehension. Previous studies have shown that more syntactically and semantically difficult texts elicit more MW, because textual difficulty impedes the construction of a mental model of the text, which makes it more difficult to suppress off-task thoughts. But is it possible to reduce MW without altering the content of the text itself? We hypothesized that reading a perceptually disfluent text might require more attentional resources, even if the content remained the same, leaving fewer resources available for MW. To test this idea, we manipulated the typefaces (fluent [Arial] or disfluent [ ]) of two instructional texts on scientific research methods (each about 1,490 words long), and found that MW was less frequent when participants read the disfluent text. There were no comprehension differences between the fluent and disfluent groups. However, we did find an indirect effect of disfluency on comprehension through MW, suggesting that disfluency influences comprehension by enhancing attention. These findings provide insights into how processing difficulty and attention interact during reading comprehension.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension

et al. 2016

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“…Both stories were approximately equal in length (Red Balloon = 1, 774 words; Early Bloomer = 1,892 words). BBernie the Early Bloomer^was modified so that both stories were equal in terms of text complexity as assessed by the Flesh Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) metric (Klare, 1974), (FKGL for The Red Balloon = 4.4; FKGL for Early Bloomer = 4.4).…”

Section: Storiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind wandering during film comprehension: The role of prior knowledge and situational interest

2015

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This study assessed the occurrence and factors that influence mind wandering (MW) in the domain of film comprehension. The cascading model of inattention assumes that a stronger mental representation (i.e., a situation model) during comprehension results in less MW. Accordingly, a suppression hypothesis suggests that MW would decrease as a function of having the knowledge of the plot of a film prior to viewing, because the prior-knowledge would help to strengthen the situation model during comprehension. Furthermore, an interestmoderation hypothesis would predict that the suppression effect of prior-knowledge would only emerge when there was interest in viewing the film. In the current experiment, 108 participants either read a short story that depicted the plot (i.e., priorknowledge condition) or read an unrelated story of equal length (control condition) prior to viewing the short film (32.5 minutes) entitled The Red Balloon. Participants self-reported their interest in viewing the film immediately before the film was presented. MW was tracked using a self-report method targeting instances of MW with metacognitive awareness. Participants in the priorknowledge condition reported less MW compared with the control condition, thereby supporting the suppression hypothesis. MW also decreased over the duration of the film, but only for those with prior-knowledge of the film. Finally, prior-knowledge effects on MW were only observed when interest was average or high, but not when interest was low.

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“…This intriguing finding would never have been revealed using traditional measures of text readability, namely Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level or Reading Ease (Klare, 1974) and Lexile scores (Stenner, 2006). These formulas provide an indication of text readability based on the word and sentence lengths found in the text.…”

Section: Creation and Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 94%

Language and Discourse Analysis with Coh-Metrix: Applications from Educational Material to Learning Environments at Scale

2016

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ABSTRACT:The goal of this article is to preserve and distribute the information presented at the LASI (2014) workshop on Coh-Metrix, a theoretically grounded, computational linguistics facility that analyzes texts on multiple levels of language and discourse. The workshop focused on the utility of Coh-Metrix in discourse theory and educational practice. We discuss some of the motivating factors that led to the development of Coh-Metrix, situated within the context of multilevel theoretical frameworks of discourse comprehension and learning. A review of published studies will highlight the applications of Coh-Metrix, ranging from the scaling and selection of educational material to learning environments at scale. The examples illustrate the relationship between discourse and cognitive, affective, and social processes. We walk through the methodological guidelines that should be followed when analyzing texts using Coh-Metrix. Finally, we conclude the paper with a general discussion of the future directions for Coh-Metrix including methodological and practical implications for the learning analytics (LA) and educational data mining (EDM) communities.

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Assessing Readability

Cited by 340 publications

References 0 publications

The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension

The effect of disfluency on mind wandering during text comprehension

Mind wandering during film comprehension: The role of prior knowledge and situational interest

Language and Discourse Analysis with Coh-Metrix: Applications from Educational Material to Learning Environments at Scale

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