McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading: Know What a Comprehension Criterion Measures

Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 513

Right answers, wrong action

Short reading passages and response questions establish a defined performance criterion, not proof that readers can act on consequential instructions.

Premise

McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading made comprehension observable through graded passages and questions. William A. McCall and Lelah Mae Crabbs published the jointly authored lessons in 1925. Their later importance was methodological: researchers used response performance as a criterion for constructing readability estimates. An observed answer to a passage and a formula predicting passage difficulty are separate measurements.

That distinction matters whenever an organization reports that a policy, safety bulletin, or disclosure is understandable because it passes a readability check. A question set may measure factual recognition while missing whether employees can interpret an exception or carry out an action. The governing question is which kind of understanding the test actually samples.

What the model is: McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading in Knowledge →