Validation of the Coleman Readability Formulas
Tünde Szalay · Psychological Reports · 1965
The following four readability formulas developed by Coleman were cross-validated: (a) X′ = 38.45 + 1.29 X 1 , (b) X′ = −37.95 + 1.16 X 1 + 1.48 X 2 , (c) X′ = −34.02 + 1.07 X 1 + 1.18 X 2 + .76 X 3 , (d) X′ = −26.01 + 1.04 X 1 + 1.06 X 2 + .56 X 3 −.36 X 4 , where X′ is predicted cloze score in percentage of correct insertions for a 100-word passage, X 1 is its number of 1-syllable words, X 2 is its number of sentences, X 3 is its pronouns, and X 4 its prepositions. The formulas were cross-validated by obtaining cloze scores for 7 new passages from 20 Ss matched with Coleman's original Ss. The rs between obtained cloze scores and those predicted from Formulas a, b, c, and d were .83, .88, .87, and .89.