Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Typewriting--Study and teaching;
Abstract
Through many years of experimentation in the field of skill psychology and in the typewriting classroom, the principle that a skill must develop from the simple to the complex has been widely accepted. In interpreting the significance of this principle, authorities in the field of typewriting appear to have accepted the idea that the copy used in the early learning stage of typewriting should be easy. It, therefore, seems appropriate to challenge the "easy-first" plan in testing. Perhaps, if beginning typewriting students were tested periodically from the first, on more difficult standardized copy, the results would be more helpful in evaluating the true progress of the learner. The question is, what type of testing material is better to use for beginning typists--material with the difficulty standardized throughout the course so that one test can be compared with the others to show progress, or material which is graded in difficulty from easy to more complex as the course progresses? Beginning in the third week of instruction, two groups of students were tested daily, one group with material of progressive difficulty (1.0 to 1.3 syllabic intensity) and one group with material of standardized average difficulty (1.4 syllabic intensity). During the fourth, fifth, and sixth weeks the skill-development procedure was repeated. Each week the material administered to the control group progressed in difficulty, while the material administered to the experimental group was held steady in difficulty. In the seventh week, both groups were tested on the same material: copy which was "easy," copy which was "average," and copy which was "difficult." Results were analyzed to determine the significance of the differences. In the eighth, ninth, and tenth weeks the skill-development period of timed writings was repeated. The difficulty of the material used by the control group progressed from very easy to low average while the difficulty of the material used by the experimental group was held steady. In the eleventh week, both groups were again tested on. the same material: easy, average, and difficult copy. The skill-development period was repeated again during the thirteenth and fourteenth weeks with a third and final testing period coming in the fifteenth week. During this period each group was again tested on material which was easy, average, and difficult. The findings revealed no statistically significant differences in any of the three periodic comparisons, although the experimental group consistently maintained higher means in speed and the control group consistently achieved a higher degree of accuracy as revealed by lower means on errors. Students who used standardized test copy for skill development typed with a smaller percentage reduction in speed than did the control group when copy was increased in difficulty from easy to average and from average to difficult. Up until the fifteenth week, the students who used standardized test copy for skill development, although less accurate, tended to type with slightly smaller variation in the number of errors made than the control group did when the difficulty of the copy was increased. The findings indicate that standardized copy of average difficulty should be used for periodic testing and standardized at the same level of difficulty throughout the course to show an accurate analysis of skill development. In line with these findings, authors of typewriting textbooks might consider the possibility of including more testing material. of standardized average difficulty in their publications.
Year of Submission
1966
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Department of Business and Business Education
First Advisor
Katherine Humphrey
Second Advisor
Lloyd V. Douglas
Third Advisor
Gordon J. Rhum
Date Original
1966
Object Description
1 PDF file (93 leaves)
Copyright
©1966 Donald Eugene Clayton
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Clayton, Donald Eugene, "A Comparison of Beginning Typewriting Student Achievement on Testing Material of Standardized Difficulty and Testing Material of Progressive Difficulty" (1966). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2356.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2356
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