Using Sequential Exploratory Mixed Methods Design to Explore Readability of ISPs

摘要

There are many readability formulae that aim to assess how difficult a text document is to comprehend; so far, little is known about the effect of readability on the interpretation of information security policies (ISPs) and whether examination of readability may prove to be a beneficial factor. This paper reports the first study, to examine the effectiveness of employing readability metrics as an indicator of policy comprehensibility through a mixed methods approach, with the formulation and implementation of a seven phase sequential exploratory fully mixed methods design. The original data in this paper were collected from 450 participants by a variety of instruments. The data generated were used to determine whether we might rely on a software readability scale for evaluating the difficulty of a text document in the domain of ISPs as well as factors that increase understanding of texts or enhance difficulty in understanding texts. The research contributes to our understanding of readability factor in general and offering an optimal technique to measure the readability factor in particular.