Technical Report - International Military Testing Association

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In counting three syllable wOrd6, Gunning makea the following
exccptlona:
verb forms that are made three syllable8 by the addition
of -CI pr med. For example: reducte, invested
proper nouns or word8 that are capitalized
combinations of simple words, like bookkeeper
t&nning’S Fog Count, as he Call8 It, i8 found by adding average
sentence length and percentage of herd words, end multiplying the resulting
am by .4. The Fog Count is a grade equivalent. Twelve equals high school
graduate, 16 equals college graduate, etc. I have celled the acore
resulting fran the application of Gunning’8 method a “Readability Index”‘,
or RI.
The fOrUtUla8 develdped by Gunning end Flesch vere validated against
the McCall-Crabbs retding tests which were etandardized against ext,enslve
student population8. This critcriOn is admittedly not a good one for
adult reading materiels, but it vaa the only one available for that
purpose 0
Application of Gunn’ng’s Fog Index to MOS Evaluation Teat Ire.2
Plesch end Gunning recommend taking loo-word samples of long articles
to determine reading difficulty. Counting only one alternative to avoid
excts8ive repetition, the average test iten has about 20 words. This 01
admittedly a small sample. However, much Useful information may be gained
if a readability index can be determined for the individual item. An
echlevement-type item will contain one or more complete sentences to
determine average sentence length, end the number of 3-eylleble word8
in en item can be counted to determine percentage of “hard” words.
In counting 3-syllable worde, decieione mU8t be made about counting
number8 and eerles of lettera, or numbers and letters, which occur feirlly
frequently in MOS evaluation tests. In this respect, it is believed
that Gunning’8 ryrtem is more adapteblc to determining the readability
. of HCS evaluation test items then that of Flesch.
Determination of Validity (ric)
A criterion of job performance consisting of 3 peer ratings per
subject on an overall performance scale hae been obtained by this Center
for samples of EM in selected NOS. These ratings vere obtained in field
trip8 to selected military installations. Item validity (ric) was
obtained by the point bi8eri81, or Pearson correlation between item and
criterion.
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