Patient Literacy and the Readability of Written Cancer Educational Materials

Worksheet

Methods:

1. Describe the population from which patients were sampled for this study. How were the patients selected from the population?

2. Describe the population from which booklets were sampled for this study. How were the booklets selected from the population?

3. What characteristics of written material appear in the Flesch formula for reading ease?

4. Describe how the WRAT-R2 subscale is used. Are you convinced that the WRAT-R2 word recognition test is a valid measure of reading comprehension? Why or why not?

Results:

5. Draw a back-to-back stemplot that compares the reading abilities of the patients in your sample to the readability values of the booklets in your sample.

6. Draw side-by-side boxplots to compare the reading abilities of the patients in the sample to the readability values of the booklets in the sample.

7. Which do you find to be a better visual comparison of the patients and the booklets - the histograms as presented on page 1348 of the published article, the back-to-back stemplot, or the side-by-side boxplots? Explain.

8. Compute the mean and median grade levels first for the patients in your sample and then for the booklets in your sample.

9. Compute the range and standard deviation first for the patients in your sample and then for the booklets in your sample.

10. What characteristic of the grade levels in this study makes the use of the mean, range, and standard deviation highly suspect?
    Hint: Is grade level a categorical or a quantitative variable? Think carefully!

11. Compare the median grade levels of the patients and the booklets. Discuss how this comparison influences your conclusion about the readability of the booklets for patients with cancer.

Conclusion:

12. Write a letter addressed to the National Cancer Institute or the American Cancer Society, the organizations that published the pamphlets under consideration. Your letter should summarize your position on whether the pamphlets considered in this study are too hard for the patients in this study to read.

    Your letter should be accompanied by only one of the three types of graphical displays you constructed (presumably the one that you feel makes the best visual comparison of the groups), and it should report values to describe the centers and the spreads of the two groups as evidence to support your conclusion.

    Note: You should not actually mail your letter to the National Cancer Institute or the American Cancer Society. But please write it as if you were going to mail it!