The language of school science
Gottfried Merzyn · International Journal of Science Education · 1987
In this paper, three different methods for estimating the linguistic complexity of textbooks are reviewed: research on the readability, research on the vocabulary and research on understanding a text by means of the cloze technique. Application of these techniques leads to similar results as regards the difficulty of science textbooks. The results suggest that there is a general tendency for school science texts to be overdemanding on pupils’ abilities.