Understanding the U.S. Constitution: How Difficult Is It?

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine the reading comprehension difficulty level of the U.S. Constitution for a sample (N=117) of typical college students. A 50-item cloze measure was prepared over a section of the Constitution and administered. Approximately 25% of the subjects demonstrated substantial difficulty in completing the cloze passage. Most subjects scored at a level suggesting competence in comprehending the Constitution provided there was instructional support while only a few demonstrated great ease in comprehending the document.

Findings suggest that the U.S. Constitution is a difficult document for readers to comprehend. Consequently, the need for presenting the Constitution in learning environments designed to facilitate understanding of this document is evident. The contention that greater emphasis on the Constitution might be needed is evidenced by the fact that the subjects, representing the more competent learners among the general population, demonstrated difficulty with it.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Applebee

A.N.

Langer

J.A.

Mullis

(1987). Literature and U.S. History: The instructioital experience and factual knowledge of high school juniors. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Alter

Denworth

(1990). A vague sense of history. Newsweek, Special issue: How to teach our kids, 31-33.

Bliss

(1990). Visuals in perspective: An analysis of the U.S. history text books. The Social Studies, 81, 10-14.

Brown

J.L.

Bennett

J.M.

Hanna

(1981). The Nelson-Denny reading test. Chicago: Riverside.

Chaney

L.V.

(1987). American memory: A report on the humanities in the nation’s public schools. Washington: National Endowment for the Humanities.

Durkin

D.D.

(1989). Teaching them to read (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Harris

A.J.

Sipay

E.R.

(1990). How to increase reading ability (9th ed.). New York: Longman.

Henry

W.A.

(1990, April 9). Beyond the melting pot. Time, 735(15), 28-31.

Martorella

P.H.

(1990). Strategies for aiding students in comprehending social studies subject matter. The Social Studies, 81, 131-134.

10.

McGowan

Guzzetti

(1991). Promoting social studies understanding through literature based instruction. The Social Studies, 82, 16-21.

11.

Ransom

P.E.H.

(1970). A survey to determine the reading levels of elementary school children by cloze testing. Dissertation Abstracts International, 26, 3705A-3706A. (University Microfilms No. 65-13,038).

12.

Ravitch

Finn

C.E.

(1987). What do our 17 year olds know?: A report on the first national assessment of history and literature. New York: Harper and Row.

13.

Readence

Bean

Baldwin

(1985). Content area reading: An integrated approach. Dubuque, LA: Kendall-Hunt.

14.

Taylor

W.L.

(1953). Cloze procedures: A new tool for measuring readability. Journalism Quarterly, 30, 415-433.

15.

Wilson

R.M.

Gambrell

L.B.

(1988). Reading comprehension in the elementary school. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.