| Abstrakt: |
A two-part study was conducted to examine the comprehension of acronyms in written text. In the first part of the study, 260 articles were examined for acronym usage. Acronyms were used in 81.2% of the papers and a mean of 4.13 acronyms per paper was observed. The number of acronyms was related to the author's affiliation, with papers from authors employed in government and military positions using more acronyms that authors employed in industry or colleges. Results from a questionnaire given in part two of the study showed that the mean percent correct scores for acronym identification was about 55%. Participants showed a highly variable performance on the identification task. Four of the twenty acronyms were incorrectly identified by all of the participants, five were identified by at least 95% of the sample, and performance was between these extremes on eleven acronyms. These results suggest that acronyms should always be defined in writing to ensure comprehension. |
