Content Analysis of “Socio-economic Skills” Book for Pre-Professional Mentally Retarded Students from Readability Perspective and the Teachers’ Opinion
Subject Areas :
Keywords: content analysis, readability, cloze method, items and figures analysis method, mentally retarded, socio-economic skills,
Abstract :
Textbooks are regarded as important elements in learning and curriculum which should be valid in terms of content. This study aims at investigating the readability levels of “socio-economic skills” textbook which is designed for bradyphrenic students. The study was conducted by both descriptive and content analysis methods. The population of this study consisted of the bradyphrenic students and their teachers. The sampling method for the textbook was purposeful for the content and systematic for the pictures. All the items, students and their teachers were used as samples. The materials were cloze test, teacher’s attitude survey, pictures and items list. In order to analyze the data from readability tests, one-way analysis of variance and Post Hoc tests were used. The results showed that the amount of text and pictures coefficient of readability is 50.09 % and 53 % respectively. The order of items is appropriate with regard to the order of paragraphs so they cause better learning. The items continuation is 4.86 % so it is less than appropriate level. All of the texts, pictures and items are designed appropriately and the differences among the teacher’s ideas about the level of readability are statistically significant (P=0.01). In sum, the texts and pictures readability is suitable but the items require more corrections.