本研究採用詞彙辨識作業探討不同認字能力學童辨識中文字詞的字元複雜度效果與詞長效果。研究對象為124 名國小三年級學童，包括：低認字能力學童45 名（認字能力為二年級水準）、中等認字能力學童42 名（認字能力為三年級水準），高認字能力學童37 名（認字能力為四年級水準）。實驗一以筆劃數為分析單位，探討學童辨識中文字是否有字元複雜度效果；實驗二以部件數為分析單位，探討學童辨識中文字是否有部件數效果；實驗三以字元數為分析單位，探討學童辨識中文詞是否有詞長效果。研究結果為：以筆劃數為分析單位時，發現字元複雜度效果。以部件數為分析單位時，沒有發現部件數效果。以字元數為分析單位時，發現詞長效果。

The present study was designed to investigate effects of complexity and word length of Chinese characters on the decoding ability of elementary students when reading Chinese script. Character complexity was defined by （a） the number of constituent strokes for characters （studied in Experiment 1）, and （b） the number of constituent radicals for characters （studied in Experiment 2）. The length of word was defined as the number of constituent characters of words （studied in Experiment 3）. Student performance on a lexical recognition task was used as the dependent variable in the three experiments. A total of 124 third grade students, including 45 with low decoding abilities, 42 with average decoding abilities, and 37 with high decoding abilities, participated in the study. It was found that when characters with high frequency were used as stimuli, character complexity defined as the number of constituent strokes of characters, showed a significant interaction effect between complexity and decoding ability. No complexity effect was found when complexity was defined as the number of constituent radicals of characters. Word length, defined as the number of constituent characters of words, showed effects on participants’performance on the lexical recognition task.