The Application of the Marketing Concept in Textbook Selection: Using the Cloze Procedure

Because of increased class sizes, higher staff teaching loads, and inadequate teaching facilities, many marketing faculty have less time to evaluate textbooks effectively. This situation results in text selection processes based on criteria that favor ease of teaching rather than student learning. Since marketing education places great reliance on textbooks as the primary instructional medium, marketing academics must select textbooks using explicit, educationally sound, student-oriented criteria. A method reflecting the most fundamental law of marketing, one that ensures that the chosen texts are easy for students to read and understand, should rate as an important selection process criterion. The cloze procedure has proven to be a highly reliable and valid measure of “understandability.” This study suggests that it is an objective and responsive marketing-oriented technique for selecting marketing textbooks. To demonstrate its use, the technique is used to rank three international editions of principles of marketing textbooks by obtaining scores of understandability from first-year students at one Australian university. These objective scores of understandability, when complemented by other qualitative and quantitative criteria for evaluating textbooks, are very useful for selecting marketing textbooks.