Readability of Air Force Publications: A Criterion Referenced Evaluation

摘要

The major objective of this study was to investigate the readability of a sample of Air Force regulations which had been rewritten in accordance with a recent Air Force directive. Regulation writers are directed to match in their texts the target reading grade level (RGL) of the personnel who will use the regulations. The directive also specifies the method for estimating RGLs. In the first part of this study, the writer-estimated RGL for each regulation was rechecked by Air Force Human Resources Laboratory staff using FORCAST formula. It was found that four of the seven writers underestimated the RGL of their regulation by more than one grade level. None of the writers was able to produce a document with an RGL, as estimated by AFHRL, much below 11th grade, while the audience RGL of three of the seven fields was below 10th grade. The main portion of the study involved testing the comprehensibility of each regulation to its user audience by means of the CLOZE procedures. In this testing method, every fifth word of a passage taken from the regulation was deleted, and personnel were asked to fill in the blanks with their best estimates of the missing words. A criterion of a CLOZE score (40%) corresponding to a 75% score on a traditional comprehension test was set as the standard for adequate comprehension. Mean scores in three fields were clearly above criterion, and the score in one additional field was borderline. Using the term literacy gap to refer to a situation where a text is written at an RGL too high for its intended readers, it was found that in all cases when there was no such gap, comprehension was adequate. (Author)