DOI: 10.21950/6r9k8x
title: Materials used in the self-paced reading experiment about the effect of plain terminology in comprehension of administrative texts in Spanish

description: &lt;b&gt;Description of the project&lt;/b&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The project “A technological prototype for writing in plain language: implementation in the Public Administration and analysis of its impact on citizens” (arText_IMPACT) (PDC2022-133935-I00) has three objectives:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;O1: To implement the “arText claro” software in the Public Administration. Firstly, in the Madrid City Council and, subsequently, in other Administration offices (city councils, regional councils, provincial councils, ministries, etc.).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;O2: To evaluate the impact of the use of “arText claro” software in different groups of citizens in Spain.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;O3. To undertake actions of dissemination and communication of the research in different forums.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
description: &lt;b&gt;Description of the dataset&lt;/b&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This dataset includes the materials used in a self-paced reading experiment aimed at examining the effect of plain terminology on the processing and comprehension of administrative texts in Spanish.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The study compared the reading times and the degree of comprehension of texts that included legal-administrative terminology that is “difficult to understand” according to legal language manuals, and texts in which such terminology was replaced by plain-language synonyms, i.e. terms that convey the same meaning but are easier to understand according to the same manuals.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The materials included are: &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Material 1) 20 experimental texts and 20 distractors, extracted from the Official Gazette of the Madrid City Council, and adapted for the experiment. Each experimental text includes a version with difficult terminology and another with plain terminology. Each text is followed by a comprehension question.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Material 2) Instructions for the self-paced reading experiment.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Material 3) Background questionnaire, used to collect information about the participants' socio-demographic, educational and language use characteristics.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
description: &lt;b&gt;Methodology&lt;/b&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The methodology for the elaboration of the experimental texts (material 1) included 5 stages:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;a. Selection of administrative terms and plain-language synonyms: The terms were extracted from the glossary of Administrative terms developed by Viñuales-Ferreiro and Pistola (2022) and implemented in arText (https://sistema-artext.com/), a software tool that assists the writing of texts in plain language. This glossary contains 72 terms from the Administration field, with their corresponding plain-language synonyms, extracted from bibliographical resources on legal language in Spanish. From this list, only 20 single-word nouns that did not share the same lexical root across difficult/plain variants were retained.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;b. Text selection: The texts were extracted from the Official Gazette of the Madrid City Council (BOAM). For this purpose, each terminological pair was searched for in the BOAM text search engine, and texts in which the difficult and plain term variants were interchangeable were selected.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;c. Preparation of the texts for the experiment: Changes were made to the original texts to ensure consistency between experimental texts in terms of length, grammatical structure of the target segment, content and level of difficulty.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;d. Selection of distractors: 20 distractor texts were selected from the BOAM. Changes were made to ensure consistency between them and with experimental texts in terms of length, grammatical structures, content and level of difficulty.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;e. Comprehension question: For each text, a comprehension question was included. This question aimed at assessing comprehension at the textbase level. The question was designed in such a way that it was necessary to understand the experimental term, but the wording did not mention the term or its meaning. The questions were set to be answered answered "yes" or "no".&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The procedure for data collection included the following stages:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Presentation of the project and signing of informed consent form.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Background questionnaire (material 3)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Self-paced reading experiment: participants read the instructions (material 2) and carried out the reading experiment (material 1).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
description: Psychopy (https://www.psychopy.org/)
description: Pavlovia (https://pavlovia.org/)
description: <b>Grant Information</b>
Title: “A technological prototype for writing in plain language: implementation in the Public Administration and analysis of its impact on citizens” (arText_IMPACT) (PDC2022-133935-I00)
Funding: Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Convocatoria Prueba de Concepto (PDC2022-133935-I00)
Institution: Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain.
Principal investigator: Iria da Cunha
Period: 2022-2024