Prediction of reading difficulty in Russian academic texts

Pascual Cantos Gómez, Ángela Almela Sánchez Lafuente, 2019

Readability indices have been widely used in order to measure textual difficulty. They can be useful for the automatic classification of texts, especially in language teaching. Among other applications, they allow for the previous determination of the difficulty level of texts without the need of reading them through. The aim of this research is twofold: first, to examine the degree of accuracy of the six most commonly used readability indices, and second, to present a new optimized measure. The main problem is that these readability indices may offer disparity, and this is precisely what has motivated our attempt to unite their potential. A discriminant analysis of all the variables under examination has enabled the creation of a much more precise model, improving the previous best results by 15%. Furthermore, errors and disparities in the difficulty level of the analyzed texts have been detected.

Turkish textbooks are important tools for gaining skills and competencies identified in curriculum.

Vestnik Volgogradskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Serija 2. Jazykoznanije, 2019

Reading comprehension relies on a variety of complex skills that are not effectively assessed by existing Russian language tests. At the same time, Russian textbooks are criticized both for their low text quality and high text complexity. This study addresses issues of Russian language proficiency and comprehension assessment with the development of the Russian Language Test (RLT). The RLT was constructed to measure proficiency relevant to textbook comprehension, such as grammar and vocabulary knowledge, establishing propositional meaning and inferencing. Results from this initial study including 81 fifth-grade and 94 ninth-grade students confirm that students struggle with grammatical inferences and identifying the main idea in a text. Additionally, three standardized Russian exams, VPR, OGE, EGE are analyzed, affording an overview of the testing system for the Russian language from the elementary through high school education levels. This study demonstrates promise for the use of ...

ISRGJEHL, 2024

Appropriate tools lead to valid and fair measurement, processing and evaluation of texts produced by foreigners in a different language (Elder & Harding, 2008: 341-342). In addition, this data is very important in order to be able to create exam instructions and tests depending on language skills (in this case B1 and B2 based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages) and level of difficulty, i.e. the readability grade (Lenzner, 2014: 678-681). The discovery of such data is necessary for language levels (A1-C2) and for different languages in order to create more advanced text evaluation software (Beacco, 2017: 9-19). Furthermore, the two largest Greek universities EKPA and the University of Aristotle in Thessaloniki already use a very

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2018

An adequate level of linguistic complexity in learning materials is believed to be of crucial importance for learning. The implication for school textbooks is that reading complexity should differ systematically between grade levels and between higher and lower tracks in line with what can be called the systematic complexification assumption. However, research has yet to test this hypothesis with a real-world sample of textbooks. In the present study, we used automatic measures from computational linguistic research to analyze 2,928 texts from geography textbooks from four publishers in Germany in terms of their reading demands. We measured a wide range of lexical, syntactic, morphological, and cohesion-related features and developed text classification models for predicting the grade level (Grades 5 to 10) and school track (academic vs. vocational) of the texts using these features. We also tested ten linguistic features that are considered to be particularly important for a reader's understanding. The results provided only partial support for systematic complexification. The text classification models showed accuracy rates that were clearly above chance but with considerable room for improvement. Furthermore, there were significant differences across grade levels and school tracks for some of the ten linguistic features. Finally, there were marked differences among publishers. The discussion outlines key components for a systematic research program on the causes and consequences of the lack of systematic complexification in reading materials. Educational Impact and Implications Statement In our study, we examined whether German textbooks used in secondary school (Grades 5 to 10, vocational and academic tracks) are constructed in a systematic way with respect to their text complexity. Moreover, we looked at differences between publishers. Our results provided only partial support for a systematic increase in text complexity with regard to grade levels and school tracks. Furthermore, there were marked differences among publishers. Thus, it would be worthwhile for the publishers and authors of school textbooks to more carefully consider the readability characteristics of the learning materials they provide.

Over Readability indexes have been widely used in order to measure textual difficulty. They can be really useful for the automatic classification of texts, especially within the language teaching discipline. Among other applications, they allow for the previous determination of the difficulty level of texts without even the need of reading them through. The aim of this investigation is twofold: first, examining the degree of accuracy of the six most commonly used readability indexes: Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog, Automated Readability Index, SMOG, and Coleman-Liau; and second, by means of the data obtained, trying to come up with a new optimised measure.

International Online Journal of Educational Sciences

Textbooks are essential resources for both learners and teachers when teaching Turkish as a foreign language. Texts in textbooks are the most fundamental documents used to instruct foreigners in Turkish. Texts in textbooks should be appropriate for the student level in terms of a variety of characteristics. Readability is one of the characteristics cited in the literature for determining the appropriateness of textbook texts to the student level. This study analyzed the text readability levels of the Anahtar-Turkish for Foreigners C1 textbook. Document analysis was utilized in the data collection process of the study. Two different formulas were used to determine the readability of the texts in the textbook: the Ateşman and Çetinkaya-Uzun formulas. The data were descriptively analyzed. The texts were categorized according to their levels of difficulty, and the results were tabulated. The study concluded that according to both formulas, the readability levels of the texts in the Turkish for Foreigners C1 textbook are similar; the texts are at a medium level according to Ateşman and an educational level according to Çetinkaya-Uzun, and the related textbook is easier in terms of readability level than similar textbooks in the literature.

Readability has long been regarded as a significant aspect in English language teaching as it provides the overall picture of a text's difficulty level, especially in the context of teaching and testing. Readability is a practical consideration when making decisions on materials to match a text with target readers' proficiency. However, few studies have compared the readability levels of teaching and testing materials in terms of the difficulty of passages. The present study, therefore, aims to explore the readability levels and the linguistic characteristics of reading passages in English textbooks and the Thai National Education English Test based on three readability formulas and eight aspects of linguistic characteristics as provided by the Coh-Metrix computational tool. Two sets of corpora were generated and analyzed by using Coh-Metrix as the main instrument. The obtained data from the reading passages compiled in the English textbooks and the Thai national education English test were compared to explore the significant differences. The results revealed a mismatch in the readability levels and linguistic characteristics. Passages from the English textbooks are easier than those used in the English test. It is recommended that all stakeholders in both teaching and testing administration be aware of the different levels of readability between reading passages. More considerations should be made when preparing the teaching and testing materials because a suitable difficulty level will ensure that students receive the most benefit from the materials. Moreover, an incongruity could affect students' learning and testing performance.

2013

When creating or selecting texts for instruction, textbook writers frequently rely on their judgment about the difficulty of a text. For a more objective measure of text difficulty, text analysis tools are available. This paper briefly describes one such tool, Coh-Metrix, which can identify linguistic and psycholinguistic features of texts. The text analysis tool was used to analyze the texts in four textbook series that are used in Classes 1-4. The results on four parameters are displayed, allowing a comparison between textbook series and across grades.

This study aimed to identify and classify the readability levels of Turkish texts. The sample in the Correlation Survey model included 32 Turkish instructional texts. The texts included in the sample of the study were administered to groups of 30 students, extending from the fifth class to the twelfth class. The cloze readability procedure was used in this research. Obtained data were analyzed in the SPSS program. In this research the relationship between the readability of texts and variables such as average word length, average sentence length, number of polysyllabic words, and the rate of repeated words was determined by the Pearson productmoment correlation analysis. As a result of this analysis, "the rate of repeated words" and the rate of polysyllabic words, which express the similar meanings with average word length and -.677 with the readability index, as measured by the cloze scores, were not included in the multiple regression analysis. As a result of multiple regression analysis, regression equation is: