Accuracy of Learnability Judgments for Instructional Texts

• Published in: Journal of educational psychology 1991-03, Vol.83 (1), p.43-47
• Main Authors: Britton, Bruce K, Van Dusen, Lani, Gülgöz, Sami, Glynn, Shawn M, Sharp, Laury
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; College Students; Colleges & universities; Difficulty Level; Educational psychology; Evaluative Thinking; Evaluators; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Guides; Higher Education; History; Human; Judgment; Learnability Theory; Learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopedagogics. Didactics; Reading Comprehension; Social research; Student Attitudes; Students; Text Structure; Textbook Evaluation; Textbook Selection; Textbooks; Undergraduate Students; User Preferences
• ISSN: 0022-0663; 1939-2176
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.83.1.43

We tested the accuracy of college students' judgments of the relative learnability of original and rewritten versions of 20 pairs of instructional texts. For each pair of texts, we knew from earlier experiments which version was retained better 24 hr after reading. Results showed that the students were 95% accurate in their judgments. College textbook selection procedures can therefore give substantial weight to user judgments of learnability. This is likely to lead to the selection of more learnable textbooks and to more learning. Authors and editors of textbooks also may be able to select the more learnable alternate revisions of instructional texts. This could lead to improvements in textbook quality.