Straight From the Scientist’s Mouth—Plain Language Summaries Promote Laypeople’s Comprehension and Knowledge Acquisition When Reading About Individual Research Findings in Psychology

Abstract

Easily comprehensible summaries of scholarly articles that are provided alongside ‘ordinary’ scientific abstracts, so-called plain language summaries, can be a powerful tool for communicating research findings to a wider audience. Using an experimental within-person-design in a preregistered study (N = 166), we showed that the comprehensibility for laypeople was higher for plain language summaries compared to scientific abstracts in a psychological journal and also found that laypeople actually understood the corresponding information more correctly for plain language summaries. Moreover, in line with the easiness effect of science popularization, individuals perceived plain language summaries as more credible and were more confident about their ability to make a decision based on plain language summaries. If and under which circumstances this higher perceived credibility is justified, is discussed together with other practical implications and theoretical implications of our findings. In sum, our research further strengthens arguments for providing plain language summaries of psychological research findings by demonstrating that they actually work in practice.

How to Put It Plainly? Findings From Two Randomized Controlled Studies on Writing Plain Language Summaries for Psychological Meta-Analyses

“…Against the background of an ongoing replication crisis in psychology ( Open Science Collaboration, 2015 ; Świątkowski and Dompnier, 2017 ; Klein et al, 2018 ), we have argued that PLS may be a powerful tool for rebuilding public trust in psychological science, and first experimental findings ( Kerwer et al, 2021 ) seem to support this notion (see also Carvalho et al, 2019 for non-experimental findings that point in the same direction). Because meta-analyses possess a higher quality of evidence and are instrumental for summarizing findings and guiding practitioners ( Borenstein et al, 2009 ; Bastian et al, 2010 ), we further argue that the lay-friendly communication of psychological meta-analytical findings is of particular importance – even though legitimate criticisms on the validity of their findings may exist (e.g., Sharpe and Poets, 2020 ; Burgard et al, 2021 ; Patall, 2021 ).…”

“…Outcomes measuring user experience aims of PLS in experimental studies comprise subjective statements and self-reports on perceived readability of a PLS (accessibility), perceived ease of comprehending the meaning of a PLS on a content level (understanding) and/or usefulness of a PLS for making decisions (empowerment). Knowledge can be measured using (objective) knowledge tests (e.g., Alderdice et al, 2016 ; Buljan et al, 2018 ; Kerwer et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Furthermore, most empirical studies on PLS employed rather small samples that were far from representative for the general public. Participants were often highly educated (e.g., students, Alderdice et al, 2016 , Kerwer et al, 2021 ; or healthcare professionals, Opiyo et al, 2013 ; Maguire and Clarke, 2014 ). The empirical evidence that PLS are effective for the public in general – outside narrow settings of professionals or student samples – is therefore still scarce.…”

“…The fifth aspect, we investigated is not psychology-specific but applies to PLS in general. Cochrane guidelines ( Cochrane Methods, 2013 ; Cochrane Norway, 2016 , 2019 ) and existing evidence on research summary characteristics clearly point toward subheadings as an important formal element that should be included in research summaries and PLS (e.g., Kerwer et al, 2021 for PLS; but see also Hartley, 2004 , 2014 ; Hartley and Betts, 2007 for structured abstracts in general). Additionally, first evidence suggests that further structuring the text of PLS (e.g., by means of bullet points) improves the user experience for information recipients (e.g., Ellen et al, 2014 ; Raynor et al, 2018 ; Anzinger et al, 2020 ).…”

Optimizing Readability and Format of Plain Language Summaries for Medical Research Articles: Cross-sectional Survey Study

“…Plain language summaries (PLSs) have been introduced to make written and verbal information more easily understood by nonexperts [ 6 - 8 ]. Such strategies are gradually being adopted across all documents, presentations, and electronic communications intended for the public to avoid the use of jargon and highly technical language, and to focus on the information that is most relevant for patients, caregivers, and families [ 1 , 7 ].…”