An Analysis to Identify the Most Suitable Readability Formula for Sri Lankan Context: Case Study Computer Science Students
Choolangika Sirisuriya, L. Ranathunga, Shironika Karunanayaka, Aniza Abdullah · The international conference on global education and e-learning · 2018
E-Learning is learner centric therefore content readability is an important factor when designing E-Learning content.Readability is the quality of writing that makes it easy or difficult to read and understand text.Readability tests or readability formulas are formulae for evaluating the readability of text, usually by counting syllables, words, and sentences.Researchers and writers have been using readability formulas since 1920 and, over the years, they have spent a lot of time devising the most accurate and scientific formulas to assess readability.At the moment, there are more than 200 readability formulas developed by various scholars but only some of these formulas are reliable to determine the reading-level of a text.The aim of our study is to investigate what are the most suitable readability formulas for Sri Lankan context since Sri Lankans are nonnative English speakers who have basic knowledge of English.This study focused on a survey with the participation of undergraduate students in Sri Lanka who read and evaluated the readability of three paragraphs.We selected the undergraduates who are studying in the Computer Science stream therefore the paragraphs are related to Computer Science field with different complexity levels.Then we calculate the readability of the three given paragraphs using selected readability formulas and compare the results with the students" feedbacks to select the most suitable formulas for Sri Lankan context.Factors that we consider when selecting the readability formulas are those suitable for college level readers, using English as Second/Foreign Language, popularity of the formula and suitability of the formulas design for technical text.After selecting suitable formulas design, a tool is developed to measure the text readability.