An investigation of language-drill effectiveness in second-semester typewriting at the secondary level

Date

1971

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Abstract

Purposes The purposes of this study were to determine whether typewriting intentional drills containing language arts concepts would significantly improve (1) language arts knowledges and (2) typewriting speed and accuracy of secondary typewriting students. Procedures The subjects of this study were eight second-semester typewriting classes at Robert E. Lee High School, Baytown, Texas. Two hundred and forty students were enrolled in these classes. Four of the eight classes were selected at random to comprise the control group of 120 students. These students were not exposed to the special language arts drills; they typed traditional drills from the textbook. The remaining four classes comprised the experimental group of 120 students. For the first ten minutes of each class period, the students typed their traditional warmup and the specially prepared drills containing language arts concepts. At the beginning of the second semester of beginning typewriting, the subjects in both groups were administered the pretest (Form 2A of the Cooperative English Test) and a three-minute timed writing. For nine weeks immediately following the pretest, the experimental group did daily drills including linguistic concepts. At the end of the nine-week period, a post-test (Form 2B of the Cooperative English Test) and a three-minute timed writing were given to all subjects of the study. A follow-up test (Form 2C of the Cooperative English Test) was given six weeks after the drill period for rentention study purposes. A three-minute timed writing was also given six weeks after the drill period to compare speed and accuracy improvement. Appropriate statistical tools were employed to test hypotheses concerning differences in means. Data were gathered from the pretests, post-tests, and follow-up tests. The statistical methods employed were (1) analysis of variance, (2) Student t-test, and (3) Student t-test with a correction factor. All statistical formulas were programed to run on the IBM 360, Model 40 computer. Findings and Conclusions Experimental students using the specially prepared language drills scored significantly higher on the post-tests and follow-up tests than the control group. A significant amount of language drill knowledge was retained after a period of six weeks had elapsed. This finding was significant at the .05 confidence level. Students can learn and retain a significant amount of language arts subject matter from using purposive or intentional drills in the typewriting class. The typewriting drills for language development should consist of a concept, an illustrative concept example, and student application of the concept. No significant differences existed between the experimental and control groups for the typewriting pretest, post-test and follow-up test scores. The test of significance was made at the .05 confidence level. Conclusion was made that the language drill content used had no effect on typewriting speed and accuracy. Recommendations As a result of this study, recommendation is made for the development of educational materials to (1) inculcate language arts concepts in daily warmup periods, (2) teach the language-arts side of transcription, and (3) help persons who are linguistically handicapped. Recommendation is made that the findings of this investigation be considered and evaluated by high school and college business education instructors. Recommendation is also made that educational efforts be continued and enhanced for knowledge pertaining to language concept development in typewriting classes.

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Keywords

Typewriting--Study and teaching.

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