Level of detail in written instructions

Includes bibliographical references (pages 34-36)Research in a variety of fields for measures of comprehensibility of written material has indicated the importance of content variables, in addition to the more commonly measured textual variables. Content variables include: the amount of information, the type of subject material, level of detail, etc., while textual variables are, for example grammatical variations, linguistic, stylistic, and format variables. In particular, a number of studies have indicated that level of detail (or number of inferences) appears to have an effect on comprehension. Congruent with this empirical observation is the common assumption that people with little knowledge need explicit, more detailed directions and that people with more knowledge need\ud less detail.\ud This study sought to measure the performance effects of different levels of detail in instructions and interactions of level of detail with levels of familiarization with a task. Eighty-one subjects were given different instructions written at three levels of detail for the task of calculating the Pearson r on a desk calculator. Subjects were also differently familiarized with the electronic desk calculator and were given varying amounts of information as to the meaning of correlation.\ud A greater number of correct responses were obtained from the more familiarized subjects and from all subjects on the second trial. No significant differences were found in performance due to level of detail in the instructions. Subjects with the briefest and middle instructions did, however, indicate a preference for more information. It was concluded that, given a fixed body of information to be presented to people of widely varying abilities, altering the number of statements used to present that information will not significantly affect performance, provided a consistent format is used. Further, inadequate detail is suggested as an insufficient descriptor of the cause of errors in following written instructions