Readability and Institutional Discourse: An Analysis of University of Cape Coast Vice-Chancellors' Reports

Abstract

At the end of every academic year, Vice Chancellors of public universities in Ghana present a report on the activities of their individual universities over the year. Because these reports are made public, they are not only meant for university staff but also others who are interested in the activities of the university. This research sought to determine the readability of Vice Chancellors’ reports over a period of five years, using the University of Cape Coast as a case study. Narratives were sampled from these reports and a readability index analysis was run using the Flesch Reading Ease formula. One sample T-test was computed to ascertain whether significant differences existed across the reports.  Eta-square was employed to determine the magnitude of effect size where significant differences existed. The mean readability scores of these reports were compared to standard Flesch Reading Ease scores of public documents to ascertain the level of reading comprehension difficulty of the reports. The study revealed that the reports are very difficult to read and that there are statistically significant differences across their readability. The researcher recommended that authors of the report use plain language to enhance ease in the understanding of the reports.