Date of Award
5-1996
Honors Thesis Number
7866
Major
Psychology
Abstract
This study examined the readability of 13 randomly selected informed consent forms used by researchers at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in various disciplines such as Education, Social Work, Journalism, Administration of Justice, Psychology, and Linguistics. In accordance with previous studies, researchers hypothesized that the informed consent forms were written at a higher reading level than the intended population can understand. To test this hypothesis, programs found in Microsoft Word version 6.0 were utilized to assess the readability of the consent forms. Specifically, forms were analyzed according to traditional measures such as the Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Coleman-Liau Grade Level, and Bormuth Grade Level. Researchers for this study revealed that their findings not only supported their original hypothesis, but also research previously published in this field. The effects are discussed further in the following pages.