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Pedagogische Wetenschappen
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Touch typing: better spelling and writing
IPRS Meeting
Intersteno Parliamentary and other professional Reporters’ Section
Zagreb, October 5-8, 2016
Dr. Henny van der Meijden & Mariëtte Tesselhof (M SEN)
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Tesselhof Opleidingen Raalte
The Netherlands
This presentation • What is touch typing? • What do we know about touch typing? • Research at Radboud University • Effects of a touch typing course (van der Meijden & Tesselhof) • Conclusion: Why touch typing? • Questions?
Touch Typing: used terms • Visually guided • Touch typing • Hunt and peck • Blind typing • Keyboard gazers • Monitor gazers
When typing a sentence:
4 processes important
• Remembering So: mental actions must
• Putting in working memory be transferred into
• Chunking in characters motorist actions
• Striking the right finger
Several authors (see paper)
A skilled typist
• Transfers without problems
• Position of the keys
• Automated motor actions
• Preparation of next keystroke
without thinking
Several authors (see paper)
Touch vs visually guided Position of the body Reduced arm movement Monitor gazers: no movement of the head Use of all fingers of both hands Content related Focus on content (cognitive load theory) No need to attent keystriking Touch typers are better writers Reading and typing in one: more cognitive processes active
Research in the past Only among adults - speed - accuracy
Present research Among children language skills * handwriting * memory * spelling * writing
Touch typing vs visual guided
10
Research at Radboud University
PARTICIPANTS RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Elementary school
higher level (age 9-12) Speed & accuracy
Secondary school Language skills
lower level (age 12-14)
Dyslectic children Motivation
Perseverance
In company: adults Speed & accuracy
Health, motivationResearch at Radboud University
PARTICIPANTS RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Elementary school
higher level (age 9-12) Speed & accuracy
Secondary school Language skills
lower level (age 12-14)
Dyslectic children Motivation
Perseverance
In company: adults Speed & accuracy
Health, motivationResearch among adults:
121 participants
151Research among adults:
121 participants
151
243Results: What happened?
Participants enrolled 121
Actually started 109
Drop outs 53
(9 just before the final test!!)
Final test 46
Positive results 39
Negative results 7
Not enrolled in final test 20Results: Speed
Speed
Speed
Typesnelheid
0,6
0,4 Experimenteel
0,2 geslaagd
0 Experimenteel
-0,2 meting 1 meting 2 meting 3 niet geslaagd
-0,4 Controle
-0,6
-0,8Results: Physical complaints
Physical complaints
shoulder (right side)Conclusion • Less physical complaints (positive final test) • Good exercise and perseverance needed • Negative break when participants start using use touch typing in their regular work In sum: It is hard for adults to change their typing behavior
Research together with
Mariëtte Tesselhof
PARTICIPANTS RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Elementary school
higher level Speed & accuracy
(age 9-12) Language skills
Secondary school
lower level (age 12-14)
Motivation
Dyslectic children Perseverance
Speed & accuracy
In company: adults Health, motivationResearch Question
What are the
effects of a touch
• 234 children
typing course on • Age 8 – 12
spelling and • Boys 103
creative writing? • Girls 110
• Pre-test-Post test
Control group design
• 157 experimental group
• 77 control group3 tests (pre and post)
Validated language test (TAK)
Test 1
Typing from paper
Test 2
Dictation
Test 3
Creative writingThe Lessons
• 15 lessons, 1.5 hours, every 2 weeks
• Homework
• Body & finger position
• Repetition
• Motivation
• Parent involvement
22Results
Exp pre Exp post Contr pre Contr post
typing skill nr 527 1682 632 754
Resultaten
keystrokes Tesselhof
spelling nr errors 10.2 6.01 8.3 7.9
dictation
Creative nr words 89 151 100 117
writing
% pictures 5.7 8.3 6.5 6.3
% relations 3.09 4.66 3.11 3.11
punctuation 2.1 2.4 1.8 1.8
All differences statistical significant
23Results
Number of key strokes/10 minutes
pretest posttest
All 24
differences statistical significantResults
Punctuation
pretest posttest
All 25
differences statistical significantSummary of findings • Enormous increase in typing speed • Less errors (typing, dictation, story) • Longer stories, better quality • Significant differences in all variables • Counts for both good and weak typists
Possible explanations
• Not only typing skill but also writing skills
• Full automation
• Less cognitive load
• Intensive practice
• GUIDANCE is very important
Regular school
Online course
ContestStudy at 2 schools
Online course:
typeworld
88 students in total
2 experimental classes at 2 schools
2 control classes at the same schools
the same test for spelling and creative writingChildren typing school vs regular school
1800
1682
1600
nr keystrokes
1400
1200
1000
825
800
612
600 527
400
200 N=157 N= 43
0
1 2
pretest posttest pretest posttest
typing school(n = 157) regular school(n=43)Online course: Typeworld
100% 100%
2013-2014
90% 2014-2015
83%
2014-2015 begeleid
80% 78% 78%
74%
70% 69%
60%
50% 48%
44%
40%
32%
30% 28%
19%
20% 18%
15% 15%
12% 12%
10%
3% 3%
0%
aangemeld en gestart direct afgehaakt bij eiland 1 eiland 1 gehaald, maar op verder dan eiland 11 verder dan eiland 15 eiland 20 gehaald
eiland 2 gestopt gekomen gekomenA contest: 10 minutes typing : who is the best? 29 students grade 4
A contest: 10 minutes typing : who is the best? 29 students grade 4
Findings our studies? • Learning how to touch type is beneficial for both children and adults • More attention for typing skill seems justified (in schools and in companies) • Lower levels students can even profit more • Automation of typing has positive effects on the quality of the typed work Intensive guidance is a MUST
Conclusion: Why touch typing?
Milo,
before and
after a touch
typing course
Touch typers can actually
see the paintingLess productive employees Time Loss of time Loss of time Loss per 6 working on due to technical due to lack of hours PC problems skills 6:00 0:14.30 0:13.07 0:27.37 hours minutes seconds 7.6% Loss higher: less educated employees (10.1%) Van Deursen & van Dijk, 2012
Why touch typing? Profits for a company
Labour hours per week 40
Hours typing per day 2
Days off 28
Days not present (training, illness) 5
Typing speed now 151
Age 42
After a course touch typing 243
Profits in DAYS 21
Calculator developed by Martin Beijer,To conclude:
A touch typing course: worth the effort!!
QUESTIONS?
h.vandermeijden@pwo.ru.nl
m.tesselhof@planet.nlTouch typing for better spelling and creative writing
Paper presented at the IPRS Meeting
Intersteno Parliamentary and
other professional Reporters’ Section
Zagreb (Croatia)
October 5th – 8th, 2016
Henny van der Meijden (MSc, PhD) Mariëtte Tesselhof (M SEN)
Educational Science Tesselhof Opleidingen
Radboud University Nijmegen Raalte
The Netherlands The Netherlands
h.vandermeijden@pwo.ru.nl m.tesselhof@planet.nl
1Introduction
It is impossible to imagine a life without computers these days. Already in primary education
in the Netherlands, students are increasingly required to work on the computer. Some authors
think that children automatically learn how to type by working on the computer, whereas
others state that touch typing, similar to learning how to write, is a skill which should be
taught at school (Van der Meijden, Hamerling, & Scholten, 2006).
Only since the nineties, typing research focused on children. Moreover, the research
focused not only on speed and accuracy, but more and more on the relation between typing
fluency and language skills. In this paper, we present a study on the effects of a course “touch
typing” in primary school children in the Netherlands
Touch typing
Two typing strategies can be distinguished: touch typing and visually guided typing
(Yechiam, Erev, Yehene, & Gopher, 2003). Typists who touch type place their hands in a
fixed position on the keyboard and use this as a starting point for pressing particular keys by
using all 10 fingers, without looking at the keyboard. Visually guided typists on the other
hand gaze at the keyboard searching for the right keys to press and type without placing their
hands and fingers in a fixed position.
According to Salthouse (1986), four processes play an important role when a person is
typing a sentence. First the sentence must be remembered, put in the working memory, then
the sentence has to be chunked in characters, finally leading to the striking of the right letter at
the keyboard. This is more difficult for less skilled typists than for skilled typists (Alves,
Castro, & Olive, 2008). Problems in the transfer from input to motorist actions might cause
the differences in text production between skilled and less skilled typist (Christensen, 2004).
In several experiments, Rieger (2004) showed that skilled typist, when typing a letter, already
prepare the next keystroke.
Thus, a skilled touch typist has memorized the position of the keys on the keyboard, is
aware of the position of the hands and fingers, has automated the motor actions of striking the
keys, and without further thinking prepares the next keystroke.
Research on typing skill and spelling
Research on typing skill and spelling is mainly focused on the differences between typing and
handwriting. A review of studies on this topic by Cochran-Smith (1991) showed that in
general typed texts were longer and contained less spelling errors than handwritten texts.
Students worked longer on a writing assignment and revised the assignment more often when
keyboarding compared to when handwriting. There are studies that reported differences
between spelling while handwriting and typing, but also that did not report differences. In the
lasts, differences were reported between skilled and less skilled typists. Other studies found
differences between. For example, Masterson and Apel (2006) and Quelette and Tims (2014)
argued that the visually-guided typing strategy came at the expense of spelling accuracy, and
that better typing proficiency might reduce the cognitive demands on the working memory,
and consequently improve spelling accuracy.
Research on typing skill and writing
Contrary to research on typing and spelling, there is little research on the relation between
typing and writing skills of primary school students (van Gelderen, Paus, & Oosterlo, 2010).
Although both writing and typing require a similar type of skill, most studies in which
handwritten texts are compared to typed texts do not take into account students’ typing
proficiency (Conelly, Gee, & Walsh, 2007). Once taken into account, studies report a strong
correlation between students’ typing skill and the quality of the typed texts (Christensen,
22004). Johansson et al. (2010) analyzed the process of typed text production of academic
students. The skilled typists, or “monitor gazers”, produced more text, revised less (less
backspace use) finished earlier and reached higher quality than the “keyboard gazers”, the less
fluent typists.
Relevance and research questions
Based on the aforementioned studies we assume a relation between typing skill and students’
quality of spelling and creative writing. The central question of this study was: Does
improving typing skill by a touch typing course have a positive effect on primary school
students’ quality of spelling and creative writing?
If this indeed is the case, it would be justified to pay more systematic attention to the
development of typing skill in primary education.
METHOD
Participants
Two-hundred-thirty-four primary school students of grades 4, 5 and 6 from 20 primary
schools in the east of the Netherlands took part in the experiment. The experimental group
consisted of students who were admitted by their parents to take part in a touch typing course
at an educational institute. The control group consisted of classmates not participating in any
touch typing course. Students’ parents provided written informed consent.
Instruments
In this study a pretest-posttest control group design was used. The pre- and posttest consisted
of three tests: a typing test, a spelling test and a creative writing test. Typing skill was
measured by the amount of keystrokes per 10 minutes (A/10min) and the number of errors
while typing up an examination script of the Dutch Alliance of Stenography and Typewriting.
As not every child reached the same A/10min, the errors are presented as percentages.
Spelling skill was measured with a dictation which consisted of nine sentences taken
from the Cito vocabulary exercise program. Every deviation from the original spelling by Cito
was scored as error.
The creative writing assignment of the Language Test for All Children [TAK]
(Verhoeven & van der Meer, 1993) was used to examine students’ level of creative writing
skill. In the creative writing assignment students typed a story based on a comic of eight
pictures. The quality of the story was determined by analyzing 1) length of the text (in words);
2) number of described pictures; 3) temporal and causal relations (in percentages); 4)
accuracy; 5) punctuation; and 6) capital use.
Touch typing course
The course was taught by a certified teacher of the educational institute. Every two weeks
students had a class of one and a half hour. In total, students attended 15 classes. If students
fell behind in typing they got the opportunity to attend an extra class in the intervening week.
Students used the written course ‘Blindelings’ (Wees-Bremers, 2008) and the online course
TypeWorld (Educatieve Uitgeverij Instruct, 2013).
RESULTS
In Table 1 mean scores at the pre- and posttest for the experimental and control group are
presented. The data show the control group to have slightly better scores on most variables at
the pretest. Data of the posttest indicate that both the experimental and the control group
improved on almost all variables.
3Table 1 Means Experimental and Controlgroup Typing skill, Spelling skill, Creative writing
Experimental group Control group
(pretest, N=157) (posttest, N=155) (pretest, N=56) (posttest, N=54)
M M M M
Typing skill
number strokes/10 min 527.14 1681.68 631.77 754.04
% errors 3.02 .65 2.85 2.34
Spelling skill
number errors dictation 10.17 6.01 8.32 7.93
Creative writing
number of words 89.99 150.53 100.07 116.56
% number of pictures benoemd 6.79 11.19 6.78 6.87
% temporal/causal relations 3.49 6.12 3.23 3.28
punctuation 2.06 2.43 1.84 1.81
capital use 1.86 2.43 1.86 1.89
% spelling errors .93 .73 .81 .68
Effect of the typing course
To examine whether improving typing skill by a touch typing course had a positive effect on
spelling and creative writing skill of primary school students, SPSS statistical test were
conducted (GLM Repeated measures ANOVA’s). An overview of the main and interaction
effects and associated effect sizes can be found in Table 2.
Table 2 Main/Interactions Effects and Effect Sizes
F df p d
Typing skill
number strokes aanslagen Maineffect Time 637.25 (1,207)number of keystrokes they made when typing a script compared to the control group: the
decrease in typing errors was significantly different for the two groups. A small, negative
effect was found indicating that students who made more keystrokes made fewer errors (see
Figure 2).
Spelling skill
To examine whether attending a touch typing course had a positive effect on spelling skill, the
number of spelling errors in a dictation was measured. The decrease in errors was
significantly different for both groups over time. A negative effect was found, indicating that
making more keystrokes went together with making less spelling errors in the dictation.
Creative writing skill
This was measured by several variables. The differences between the both groups were
significant for the number of words, the percentage of described pictures and the
temporal/causal relations with large effect sizes.
As shown in Figure 2, the experimental group showed an improvement in the use of
punctuation between the pre-and posttest, whereas the control group scored slightly lower on
punctuation at the posttest compared to the pretest. Both groups improved on capital use
between the pre- and posttest.
5Discussion
Summary of the results
The increase of the number of keystrokes that students in the experimental group made is
remarkable. The number of keystrokes increased with 1154 strokes/10 minutes at the posttest,
whereas in the control group an increase of only 123 strokes was found. The typing speed
increased to an average of 169 keystrokes per minute. Students even reached a higher typing
speed than is required for adults to get a typing certificate, which is 120 keystrokes per minute
according to the European Computer Driving License, one of the organizations that are
responsible for the certification of typing certificates in the Netherlands.
The improved typing skill had a positive effect on students’ accuracy and spelling.
Students in the experimental group made less errors in the posttest than the children in the
control group, although the latest made less errors in the pretest. Also students’ creative
writing skills improved. Students in the experimental group typed longer stories, described
more comic pictures and gave more information than students in the control group. Moreover,
they made more causal and temporal relations for example by describing when something
happened, or why. This skill in general is considered as one of the indicators of the level of
creative writing skill (van Gelderen et al., 2010). Hence, the stories of students in the
experimental group were not only longer, but also qualitatively better than those of students in
the control group inclusive punctuation and capital use. This result can be explained by the
fact that the typing course ‘Blindelings’ not only taught key positions, but also paid attention
to text design and writing conventions (Wees-Bremers, 2008).
Possible explanations
We think that there is a possible explanation for the positive results found in this study. The
intense supervision during the typing course might have played an important role in
automation of the typing skill. In this sense, Lewis, Hearn and Zilbert (1998) argued that
typing skill can only be fully automated by following a prolonged and intensive typing course.
Intense practice with good supervision seems to be essential to reach the desired results. This
statement is supported by a recent study on the effects of a touch typing course in grade 5 of
primary education (Banken, 2015). In this study students individually followed the typing
course ‘Typeworld’ with supervision of their teacher or a teaching assistant. Typing skill was
measured with the same test as was used in our study. The results came out less significant
increment of 213 keystrokes/min.
Limitations
Despite the positive results found in our study, a few limitations should be noted. Typing
speed increased, attending the touch typing course seemed to have automated the typing skill
(de Graaf-Peters, 2008). Students in the experimental group ‘blindly’ knew which keys they
had to strike without having to visually search the keyboard. This might have caused less
mental effort, i.e. they experienced less cognitive load, leaving more space in working
memory to pay attention to the content of the task (Paas et al., 2003). Secondly, students in
the experimental group had several months of intense training to automate the typing skill. To
accomplish this automation they did a variety of word games on the computer and typed all
sorts of texts. This might have influenced their language development, a development which
students in the control group did not go through. Hence, the results of our study cannot be
attributed to the typing course alone. As this was not taken into account in our study, further
research is needed to clarify this issue.
The results of this study cannot simply be generalized to all methods of learning how
to touch type. This study was conducted at a certified educational institute which made use of
intense supervision, homework schedules, and catch-up classes when students fell behind.
6Remarkable was the finding that the experimental group scored worse at several assignments compared to the control group at the pretest. This could be an indication of the fact that students who are admitted to the educational institute are precisely the students with weak language skills. Conclusion Primary school students increasingly make their learning and testing assignments on the computer. Connely and colleagues (2007) argue that when children are not able to touch type while carrying out those tasks, the computer might be more of a hindrance than an effective tool. Based on the results found in our study, we agree with this argument. Learning how to touch type seems to be worth the effort and it appears to be justified to pay more attention to typing skill in primary education. But fully automation only can be achieved with intensive guidance. References Alves, R., Castro, S., & Olive, T. (2008). Execution Johansson, R., Wengelin, A., Johansson, V., & and pauses in writing narratives: Processing time, Holmqvist, K. (2010).Looking at the keyboard or cognitive effort and typing skill. International the monitor: Relationship with text production Journal of Psychology 43(6), 969-979. processes. Reading and Writing 23, 835-851. Banken, A. (2015). Typen getoetst. Een onderzoek Lewis, D., Hearn, J., & Zilbert, E. (1998). naar het effect van blindtypen op talige en Keyboarding as general education: Post-school cognitieve taken bij basisschoolkinderen. Master employmetn and earning effects. Economics of Thesis Onderderwijskunde Radboud Universiteit Education Review. DOI: 10.1016/0272- Nijmegen. 7757(91)90023-I. Cochran-Smith, M. (1991). Word processing and Masterson, J., & Apel, K. (2006). Effect of writing in elementary classrooms: A critical modality on spelling words varying in linguistic review of related literature. Review of Educational demands. Developmental Neuropsychology 29(1), Research, 61(1), 07–55. 261-277. Conelly, V., Gee, D., & Walsh.E. (2007). A Meijden, H. van der, Scholten, A., & Hamerling, B. conmparison of keyboarded and handwritten (2006). Het belang van blindtypen met tien compositions and the relation with the vingers. Jeugd in School en Wereld 91(2), 22-24. transcription speed. British Journal of Paas, F., Tuovinen, J., Tabbers, H., & Van Gerven, Educational Psychology, 77, 479-492. P. (2003) Cognitive load measurement as a means Christensen C. (2004).Relationship between for advance cognitive load theory. Educational orthographic-motor integration and computer use Psychologists 38(1), 63-71. for the production of creative and well-structured Quellette, G., & Tims, T. (2014). The write way to written text. British Journal of Educational spell printing vs typing effects on orthographic Psychology, 74(4), 551-564. learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1-11. Graaf-Peters, V. de (2008). Motorische Rieger, A. (2004) Automatic keypress activation in ontwikkeling is een proces! De meerwaarde van skilled typing. Journal of Experimental dynamische theorievorming voor inzicht in Psychology 30(3), 555-565: motorische ontwikkeling en vroege interventie. Salthouse, T. (1986). Perceptual, cognitive, and Capita Selecta. Stimulus 2, 108-120. motoric aspects of transcription typing. Gelderen, A. van, Paus, H., & Oosterlo, A. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 99(3), 303-319. Schrijven beschreven. Uitwerking van het Verhoeven, L., & Vermeer, A. (2001). Taaltest alle referentiekader Nederlandse taal voor het kinderen (TAK). [Language Test for Children]. schrijfonderwijs op de basisschool. Enschede, Arnhem, Nederland: CITO.- Nederland: SLO, Nationaal Expertisecentrum Wees-Bremers, A. van, (2008). Blindelings. Leerplanontwikkeling. Sliedrecht, Nederland: Van den Dool. 7
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