Date Presented 04/04/19
As technology use continues to advance in educational settings as well as daily life, effective use of computers, including keyboarding skills, is becoming increasingly more critical. This session will review two different keyboarding instructional approaches for the elementary-school setting. Outcomes including keyboarding speed, accuracy, and technique will be reported for approximately 1,900 total students included in this study. Relevance to OT services will be discussed.
Primary Author and Speaker: Denise Donica
Additional Authors and Speakers: Peter Giroux, Young Joo Kim
PURPOSE: Competence with technology is increasingly more important for students, especially regarding computers for academic success and life skills. Keyboarding has documented benefits of improved speed, vocabulary, listening, SAT scores, attention, confidence, and motivation over handwriting (Ashburner, Ziviani, & Pennington, 2012; Horne, Ferrier, Singleton, & Read, 2011). The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of a structured keyboarding curriculum to free web-based computer activities on the keyboarding speed and accuracy (words per minute) and keyboarding technique for elementary-aged students in the United States.
DESIGN: We used a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent groups to examine the effectiveness of two keyboarding instructional approaches and to collect pre-(beginning of the school year) and post-test (end of the school year) data. Two schools (Kindergarten – 2nd grade and 3rd – 5th grade) used the structured keyboarding curriculum weekly in computer lab while the other two schools used district-standard, free web-based computer activities weekly in computer lab. No participants received special education.
METHOD: We used the Typing Test Pro (Typing Master, Inc., 2016) for copying 1st grade reading level text to measure keyboarding speed and accuracy and rated students on keyboarding technique using an ordinal scale (Weigelt Marom & Weintraub, 2010) during the Typing Test Pro. For analyzing keyboarding speed and accuracy, we used mixed ANOVA followed by post-hoc tests using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests with Bonferroni correction to examine the changes in each school per grade. For keyboarding technique, we used Wilcoxon signed-rank tests for within-group comparisons and Mann-Whitney tests for between-group comparisons.
RESULTS: A total of 786 students (386 males; 399 females) across kindergarten – 5th grade used structured keyboarding curriculum, and 953 students (482 males; 471 females) used the free web-based computer activities. We found significant improvements in keyboarding speed and accuracy in all schools for all grades (p < .001), although structured keyboarding curriculum schools showed significantly greater improvements than free web-based computer activities schools did (r = 0.11 – 0.28). We also found significant differences in improved keyboarding technique between the structured keyboarding curriculum and free web-based computer activities schools in all grades with large effect sizes favoring the structured keyboarding curriculum for kindergarten – 2nd grade and small effect sizes favoring the free web-based computer activities for 3rd – 5th grade.
CONCLUSION: Students in all schools in all grades improved keyboarding speed and accuracy, but those receiving structured keyboarding curriculum improved more, indicating that the structured keyboarding curriculum was more effective. Structured keyboarding curriculum was also more effective in improving keyboarding technique of students in kindergarten – 2nd grade.
IMPACT STATEMENT: Limited research is available on keyboarding instruction effectiveness in an era where demands for efficient computer use are increasing. Understanding effective keyboarding instructional approaches are critical for occupational therapists for assisting students through consultation, general education recommendations, and may also be used to inform intervention planning.
AOTA’S VISION 2025: Successful and efficient technology use for students will continue to grow in importance for educational and future vocational success to facilitate participation in everyday living (“Development and Transitions for Individuals”). Outcomes inform individual intervention as well as population-based decisions for schools and school districts.
References
Ashburner, J., Ziviani, J., & Pennington, A. (2012). The introduction of keyboarding to children with autism spectrum disorders with handwriting difficulties: A help or hindrance? Australasian Journal of Special Education, 36(1), 32-61. doi: doi.org/10.1017/jse.2012.6
Horne, J., Ferrier, J., Singleton, C., & Read, C. (2011). Computerised assessment of handwriting and typing speed. Educational & Child Psychology, 28(2), 52-66.
Typing Master, Inc (2016) Typing Test Pro. Retrieved July 28, 2016 from www.assesstyping.com
Weigelt Marom, H., & Weintraub, N. (2010). Keyboarding Observation. (Unpublished) School of Occupational Therapy of Hadassah and the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
