THE OPIN PROCEDURE: A PERFORMANCE‐BASED ASSESSMENT OF READER‐AUTHOR PROXIMITY
Peter R. Denner, Robert S. Pehrsson · Reading & Writing Quarterly · 1994
We present an alternative performance‐based assessment of reading comprehension and readability called the Opin procedure. The Opin procedure is a macroclosure procedure in which sentence endings instead of single words are deleted from a passage. Because of the open nature of the sentences, readers must develop their own opinions about the messages intended by the writers. Readers’ responses to the deletions are rated on a continuum from low to high proximity with the author's intentions. Ratings can be tallied to obtain a total reader‐author proximity score, or the reader's responses can be categorized according to the dominant pattern or comprehension strategy (fragmented, pro‐jective, or interactive) he or she used. Successful reading comprehension is defined in terms of a model‐based, communication view of the reading process.