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Readability Levels of Health-Based Websites: From Content to Comprehension
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Schutten, Mary C. McFarland, Allison J. |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | Introduction In a position statement issued by the American Association for Health Education (AAHE) related to health literacy in 2008, health literacy was defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. (1) The vital importance of developing health literacy to the overall quality of life nation is further supported by some of the Healthy People 2010 objectives, specifically, objective 11-2 as referenced by AAHE. (1) In addition, National Health Education Standards consist of seven skills and one knowledge component that are designed to create a health literate child. (1) Three of these standards are decision-making, accessing information and analyzing influences; skills that are essential to the development of health literacy. One key factor that impacts health literacy is readability. Readability refers to the ease with which a text can be read and understood. If an individual's reading skill level is significantly below that of the readability level of the document, then it can be reasonably assumed that the individual was not able to fully comprehend what s/he read. This can adversely impact the health literacy and, ultimately, the education of the child. This paper focuses on the concept of readability; calculation of readability, and suggestions to enhance the readability of student assignments. The increasing popularity of online information resources has provided many new methods for the delivery of health instructions. Implementation of technology for health instruction is actively encouraged by AAHE and is enthusiastically embraced today's tech-savvy students. (1) WebQuests are a popular inquiry-oriented method used by secondary teachers to help students access information on the web, analyze influences from a variety of viewpoints and develop decision making skills within a single activity. Enter the word "WebQuest" in any Internet search engine, and you soon discover thousands of online lessons created by teachers from around the world. According to Bernie Dodge, the educational technologist who originated this learning tool, WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented online tool for learning. (2) More specifically, it is a classroom-based lesson in which most or all of the information that students access, read, and evaluate comes from the World Wide Web. WebQuests have evolved into activities that can be as short as a single class period or as long as a month-long unit. WebQuests usually (though not always) involve group work with division of labor among students who take on assigned roles or perspectives and are built around resources that are pre-selected by the teacher. Students spend their time using information, not looking for it. The Resources section of a WebQuest consists of a list of the resources (bookmarked Web sites, print resources, etc.) that students will access to complete the task. In older WebQuests, resources were listed in a section of their own. More recent WebQuests have the resources embedded within the Process section, to be accessed at the appropriate time.2 Since students spend the majority of their time using information, educators should be certain that the resources they select can be comprehended by their students. While WebQuests support higher level thinking skills, contribute to developing media literate students, and enhance decision making, they often overlook the concept of the readability level of the Internet information used in the activity. What should health educators know about the concepts of readability and text comprehension related to WebQuests? More importantly, what additional steps should be taken to ensure that participants in WebQuests fully understand the information they access and use to make personal health decisions? Methods The Concept of Readability Simply defined, readability is the study of matching reader and text. … |
| Starting Page | 99 |
| Ending Page | 107 |
| Page Count | 9 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 12 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ851863.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
