Logical versus Empirical Estimates of Readability and Human Interest of General Psychology Textbooks

Quereshi, M. Y.; Buchkoski, Jerome E.

doi:10.1207/s15328023top0604_3

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Introductory textbook readability studies that were more common in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g., Quereshi & Buchkoski, 1979) showed similar findings. Although readability programs (e.g., Flesch formulas) were definitely controversial, the findings of the readability studies, like Griggs's(1999) results for difficulty level, indicated substantial variability across texts.…”

Section: Level Of Difficultymentioning

confidence: 64%

Similarity of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Reality or Illusion?

Griggs

Marek

2001

Teaching of Psychology

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Because the perception of extensive similarity in introductory psychology textbooks is important in the textbook selection process, we examined whether this perception was accurate. We systematically reviewed extant research encompassing 6 textbook dimensions and found that perceived similarity is the product of 2 salient, easily accessible, global text variables: chapter topics and organization. Beyond these variables, textbook homogeneity disappears. We consider stereotyping due to the arduous, complex nature of the textbook selection process as an explanation for this misperception of similarity and urge teachers to consider introductory texts more thoroughly to make the best choices for their individual courses.

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Section: Level Of Difficultymentioning

confidence: 64%

Similarity of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Reality or Illusion?

Griggs

Marek

2001

Teaching of Psychology

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“…The content analysis approach pursued by him opened up the field of introductory textbooks to psychologists applying their usual methods of research. Quereshi and his various associates published four articles from 1975 to 1981 on content analysis and its various applications to textbooks (Quereshi & Zulli, ; Quereshi & Sackett ; Quereshi & Buchkoski, ; Quereshi, ) that were caught into our citation network as highly cited.…”

Section: Description Of a Constituency—quereshi In The 1970s And The mentioning

confidence: 99%

Instructional Manuals of Boundary‐work: Psychology Textbooks, Student Subjectivities, and Disciplinary Historiographies

Flis¹

2016

J. Hist. Behav. Sci.

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This article aims to provide an overview of the historiography of psychology textbooks. In the overview, I identify and describe in detail two strands of writing histories of introductory textbooks of psychology and juxtapose them to provide an integrated historiography of textbooks in psychology. One strand is developed by teachers of psychology—first as a general approach for investigating textbooks in a pedagogical setting, and then later upgraded into a full history of psychology textbooks in America. The other strand follows a more familiar perspective of historians of science and historians of psychology who build on various post‐Kuhnian and post‐Foucauldian perspectives on textbooks. I make an argument for integrating these two views for a more comprehensive historiography of textbooks in psychology, recasting textbooks as objects of research and sources that are interesting sui generis for historians of psychology in their investigations.

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“…Huggins and Adams (1980, p. 91) claim that the "main weakness is that the difficulty of a passage involves its comprehension, and surface structure descriptions capture only some of the syntactic variables necessary to comprehension." Quereshi and Buchkoski (1979) had students rate reading ease based on two randomly selected paragraphs from each of 61 introductory psychology textbooks. They reported significant, but lower-than-expected correspondence between these subjective ratings and Flesch scores.…”

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confidence: 99%

Readability of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Flesch versus Student Ratings

Griesinger

Klene

1984

Teaching of Psychology

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Paired-comparison measures by students, after being normalized, did not agree very well with Flesch reading ease scores.Many attempts have been made to evaluate the readability of textbooks by using formulas. The bases for most of these formulas are syntactic complexity and word characteristics such as familiarity. In most readability formulas the approach is to count features such as number of syllables per 100 words or number of words per sentence in a given passage of the text. The Flesch readability formula uses this type of statistical analysis to determine the reading ease of a book.Such structural analyses have been criticized for not taking into account such things as semantic interactions and connotations. Huggins and Adams (1980, p. 91) claim that the "main weakness is that the difficulty of a passage involves its comprehension, and surface structure descriptions capture only some of the syntactic variables necessary to comprehension."Quereshi and Buchkoski (1979) had students rate reading ease based on two randomly selected paragraphs from each of 61 introductory psychology textbooks. They reported significant, but lower-than-expected correspondence between these subjective ratings and Flesch scores.The purpose of the present study was to determine if subjective and Flesch-score readability would correspond, using a variety of paragraphs on matched topic areas from different introductory psychology texts.Methods. The participants were 184 two-year college students enrolled in a three-credlt-hour undergraduate course entitled "Principles of Psychology It." The students varied w~th respect to college major. All were volunteers and were taught by the coauthors. The study was conducted on the last day of winter quarter's classes.During the winter quarter of classes, we asked for volunteers from eight sections of "Principles of Psychology 11," the final course in introductory psychology, to participate in a study on textbook readability. It was thought that these students would be familiar enough with psycholog~cal terms to understand the selections outslde the context of a whole chapter. Further, it seemed that after two quarters of introductory psychology the studepts would be more alike in their psychology background than would entering freshmen, who could range from zero to one year of study in the discipline, depending on their secondary school course selection.We selected four topics that were common to most lntroductory psychology textbooks.

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Logical versus Empirical Estimates of Readability and Human Interest of General Psychology Textbooks

Abstract: As a contribution to the text selection task, 61 books were examined by the Flesch formulae and by student ratings to estimate validity and reliability.

Cited by 9 publications

References 17 publications

Similarity of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Reality or Illusion?

Similarity of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Reality or Illusion?

Instructional Manuals of Boundary‐work: Psychology Textbooks, Student Subjectivities, and Disciplinary Historiographies

Readability of Introductory Psychology Textbooks: Flesch versus Student Ratings

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