Why people don't learn from diabetes literature: influence of text and reader characteristics.

The study was designed to identify text and reader characteristics that impede learning. Twenty-six adults with diabetes mellitus took a 15-item test for prior knowledge of diabetes, a 20-item vocabulary test, and a Need for Cognition questionnaire. Immediately after reading an excerpt from a commonly used diabetes pamphlet, they could recall an average of only eight of the 108 ideas in it. Readers seldom monitored their comprehension. Also, the topics that they thought were important differed from the topics that a physician thought were important. Many readers lacked reading skills, but those with high need for cognition and higher vocabulary scores recalled more topics. Even with an appropriate reading level, text characteristics that could hinder comprehension included lack of organization and clarity.