The major purpose of this study was to determine if the textbooks used in tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade social studies, science, and literature classes are appropriate for the students who are using them. A secondary purpose was to compare the difficulty of the texts at each grade level and in each content area. An exact word scored cloze test was administered to determine difficulty. Minor exceptions were made in scoring. / An F-test with an alpha level of.01 was used to determine if a significant difference existed in each content area. The same method was used to determine significance of difference at each grade level. If a significant difference was found, the Tukey-Kramer Modification of The Tukey Honest Significance Difference Test was used to find the source or sources of difference. / The results indicated that 92 per cent of the subjects (N = 772) tested at the frustration reading level. This result means that only eight per cent of the subjects are able to profit from attempting to read these textbooks. / The results also indicated that the social studies textbooks were less difficult than science or literature books for both tenth and twelfth graders. For eleventh graders, social studies and science textbooks were more difficult than literature books. / Eleventh grade social studies was more difficult than both tenth and twelfth grade social studies, but eleventh grade literature was less difficult than tenth or twelfth grade literature. / Because of the high percentage of subjects who scored in the frustration reading level range, the following recommendations were made: (1) The school system should implement programs to improve the reading level of its students. (2) Teachers should teach reading in the content area. (3) Teachers should develop alternatives to textbook assignments for this population. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-12, Section: A, page: 3085. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76182 |
| Contributors | SELLARS, GERALD BURNON., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 158 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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