Teaching Keyboarding Skills to Elementary School Students in Supervised and Unsupervised Environments.

This study tested the effectiveness of a typing tutorial in teaching keyboarding skills to middle- and upper-grade elementary school students in both supervised and unsupervised environments. Subjects were 56 students enrolled in grades three through six, who were divided into two groups, supervised and unsupervised, and subdivided by grade (third and fourth together, and fifth and sixth together). Students were pretested for typing proficiency, and then completed lessons from the tutorial, "Microtype: The Wonderful World of Paws." In the supervised condition, research assistants monitored students for proper keystroking technique, while in the unsupervised condition, research assistants answered questions but offered no suggestions about proper keystroking techniques. After the completion of 14 lessons, a posttest was administered. Students were found to have made similar progress in the development of their keyboarding skills regardless of environment, supervised or unsupervised, grade level, gender, or prior experience with typing. An increase in words typed per minute occurred in all four grade levels, and in all environments, except for the sixth grade students in the supervised environment. Analysis also indicated that there was no difference between students in the supervised and unsupervised environments in terms of whether they placed their hands on the home keys, or where they focused their visual attention during the keyboarding sessions. Data analyses are displayed in four tables. (13 references) (EW)