Building Competency in Diabetes Education THE ESSENTIALS

SELF-MANAGEMENT EDUCATION & SUPPORT: PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT| 11-47

o Obtain the nearest square root of the number of three or more syllable words. o Add three to the square root. This gives you the SMOG index.

Example:

Step 1

Step 2

10 sentences (beginning) 10 sentences (middle)

21 words

28 words

10 sentences (end)

23 words

30 sentences (total)

72 words (total)

Step 3: Square root of 72 = 8 Step 4: 8+3 = Grade 11

Written education materials Effective written education materials can support and augment other educational interventions (37). Guidelines for developing effective materials are summarized in Table 12 (76-78).

Table 12. Designing effective education materials (78) Step 1 Steps Actions

Target date

Complete

Define the project

Define the goal behaviour • Is (are) the behaviour(s) clear and well-defined? Conduct a needs assessment • Do(es) the target audience/experts and educators identify a need for an educational intervention/tool to support the behaviour?