Article Critique # 1: Beck and Fetherston

In “The Effects of Incorporating a Word Processor Into a Year Three Writing Program,” published in 2003 in the Information Technology in Childhood Education Annual, Natalie Beck and Tony Fetherston from Edith Cowan University, Australia, state that using a word processor improved the quality of writing and student motivation in seven case studies of grade three students. Beck and Fetherston used interviews, observations, and writing sample evaluations to collect data. The authors found students enjoyed writing more with the word processor because they didn’t have to be concerned with neatness, were able to edit their stories more easily, and were able to use images from the software, Story Book Weaver Deluxe, as inspiration. I don’t consider this study as being reliable due to skewed data collection, a poorly written literature review and abstract, and grammatical errors throughout the article.

The purpose of Beck and Fetherston’s study was to examine the effects of using a word processor on student writing not the effects of different teaching methods on writing. Thus, the latter should’ve been as consistent as possible whether the students were writing with a pen and pencil or a word processor. For the handwritten pieces, they were given the choice of using one story starter or invent their own theme. For the typed stories, students were given five story starters options. The extra choices would’ve appeal to different tastes thereby affecting student motivation.

Using Story Book Weaver Deluxe meant that students were given access to 1,600 story images to inspire them as they wrote. No pictures were given to the students when writing with pencil and paper. The images served as an unfair advantage for the typed stories.

Beck and Fetherston repeatedly note that the students didn’t like writing with pencil and paper because their teacher demanded that every letter be neat. I question whether or not the students would’ve liked writing more if they could’ve written a rough copy without forming every letter perfectly. If so, a simple change in instructional methods would’ve greatly affected student motivation when handwriting.

Beck and Fetherston mention that the classroom teacher usually insisted that students type using proper technique. However, Beck and Fetherston allowed students to type using a “method of hunt-and-peck (which) enabled them to type their stories more quickly and easily without having to make the necessary reaches required with their small fingers” (p. 153). Not having to put forth effort to type according to the teacher’s expectations, during the study, would’ve also made using a word processor more appealing to the students.

The informal voice and grammatical errors in the document made me question the article’s credibility and the authors’ professionalism. For example, there is an excess of direct quotations in the literature review, inappropriate use of punctuation, run-on sentences, incorrect verb tenses etc. This is unacceptable for a published article in a peer reviewed journal which should’ve been edited. Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2009) say that an abstract should contain the major results and conclusions which is not obvious in Beck and Fetherston’s abstract. In the “Other Results” section, Beck and Fetherston find that gender did not influence the results. I believe they shouldn’t have addressed this issue at all because their sample size of seven students was too small to determine gender effects.

I would not use Beck and Fetherston’s results to inform future research. I don’t believe that they accurately understood the reasons why students preferred writing with a word processor which is a primary goal of qualitative research (Gay, Mills, and Airasian, 2009).

Gay, L. R., Mills, G. E., and Airasian, P. (2009). Educational research: Competencies for analysis and applications. New Jersey: Pearson.

FINAL SUBMISSION

In “The Effects of Incorporating a Word Processor Into a Year Three Writing Program,” published in 2003 in the Information Technology in Childhood Education Annual, Natalie Beck and Tony Fetherston from Edith Cowan University, Australia, selected seven year three students by convenience sampling to determine their attitudes towards writing, their class’s writing program, and using a word processor when writing. Also, they sought to investigate how the use of word processors affected students’ writing development. Over the period of six weeks, the students completed two handwritten and two typed samples of writing which were evaluated for ideas, organization, style, and mechanics. Each element in these categories was classified as strong, average, or weak by the researchers and the teacher. Beck and Fetherston mostly relied on observations, two written open-ended interviews, and many unstructured interviews to collect data.

The authors found the students’ quality of writing and attitudes towards writing improved due to the use of a word processor. However, I believe that the methods used to collect the data and the teacher’s usual instructional strategies affected student’s attitudes towards writing more so than the use of a word processor. Therefore, I do not consider this study to be reliable due to skewed data collection. I also found the overall quality of the article to be weak due to a poorly written literature review (too many direct quotes), an incomplete abstract, grammatical errors, and informal language used by the authors.

Before the study began, the class had a structured writing program which the students did not like because the students felt the teacher overemphasized neatness. Because the word processor did not require them to print perfectly with a pencil, the students’ attitudes towards the word processor were more positive. I think the teacher’s evaluations of the typed stories could have also been biased due to her preference for neatness.

Running Head: ARTICLE CRITIQUE # 1: BECK AND FETHERSTON 3

Beck and Fetherston allowed the students to type with the software called Storybook Weaver

Deluxe which allowed them access to 1,600 story images to inspire them as they wrote. No pictures

were given to the students when they were writing with pencil and paper. The software should not have been used in order to fairly assess students’ attitudes towards a word processor. Furthermore, students were permitted to use the spell check feature which would have given an unfair advantage to their typed stories when evaluated for mechanics.

Beck and Fetherston mention that the classroom teacher usually insisted that students type using proper technique. However, Beck and Fetherston allowed students to type using a “method of hunt-and-peck (which) enabled them to type their stories more quickly and easily without having to make the necessary reaches required with their small fingers” (p. 153). Not having to put forth effort to type according to the teacher’s expectations, during the study, would have also made using a word processor more appealing to the students.

Another flaw in their methods was the inconsistent use of story starters. For the handwritten pieces, they were given the choice of using one story starter or invent their own theme. For the typed stories, students were given the option of five story starters. The extra choices would have appealed to different tastes thereby affecting student motivation.

Beck and Fetherston’s study provides some valuable insight for the classroom teacher. I applaud their diverse use of data collection. However, I would hesitate to apply their findings to other students. I would like to see a similar study done with a larger number of students that maintained more consistent variables and used more samples of story writing.