Level of readability

What is the reading comprehension grade level of the information and consent form? Please include a description of the methodology used to make the determination of the form that would be presented to participants being recruited.

Four different systems have been used:

The Scolarius: www.scolarius.com (only available for French texts at this time) is a free readability tool developed by Influence Communication. It allows the user to know if the level of difficulty of his text corresponds to the level of understanding of the targeted clientele. A score between 50 and 89, corresponds to the primary level of education, between 90 an 119 at the high school level, 120 and 149 at the college level, from 150 to 189 at the university level.
.The Flesch Reading Ease, in Microsoft Office. The test rates text on a 100-point scale; the higher the score, the easier it is to understand. The recommended score is between 60-70 (90 -100 is considered comprehensible by the average 5th grader; 60-70 is considered comprehensible by the average 8th-9th grader; 0-30 is considered comprehensible by college/university graduates).
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, in Microsoft Office. The test rates text similarly to the Flesch Reading Ease, but corresponding to the level of comprehension according to the U.S School Grade System. (The score corresponds to the grade of a student in the United States, e.g: a score of 4.3 would mean comprehensible by a fourth grader)
The Simple Measure of Gobbledegook Index (S.M.O.G , 1999) as suggested in the COREB common guidelines.

Please conduct a readability evaluation of your informed consent document by using one of th four tools above. The REB reserves the right to request improvements in readability as suited to the participant population. Report the readability score in the submission form.

Click the following link access Microsoft Office’s Help Page on how to ”Test Your Document’s Readability” for the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Systems.