Text complexity visualisations : An exploratory study on teachers interpretations of radar chart visualisations of text complexity

Abstract: Finding the appropriate level of text for students with varying reading abilities is an important and demanding task for teachers. Radar chart visualisations of text complexity could potentially be an aid in that process, but they need to be evaluated to see if they are intuitive and if they say something about the complexity of a text. This study explores how visualisations of text complexity, in the format of radar charts, are interpreted, what measures they should include and what information they should contain in order to be intelligible for teachers who work with people who have language and/or reading diffi- culties. A preliminary study and three focus group sessions were conducted with teachers from special education schools for adults and gymnasium level. Through thematic analysis of the sessions, five themes were generated and it was found that the visualisations are intelligible to some extent, but they need to be adapted to the target group by making sure the measures are relevant, and that the scale, colours, categories and measures are clearly explained.