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Students write better with computers than with pencils, study finds
Tuesday, April 11, 2000 By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer
When writing scores at a high-tech public school in Massachusetts went down even though students were writing more, researchers from Boston College were sent in to solve the mystery.
The culprit, the researchers found, was a test that used paper and pencils.
Put computer-savvy students on computers, and their writing test scores soared.
The resulting study showed that only 30 percent of middle-school-age students scored at a proficient level on paper while 67 percent were deemed proficient on the computer. (The paper-and-pencil test answers were copied over by typists so that scorers in the study couldn't tell which had been handwritten and which had been done on computer.)
"Low-tech tests are shortchanging high-tech students," said Walt Haney, professor of education at Boston College and senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Testing.
Haney and fellow researcher Michael Russell, a research professor in education at Boston College, are concerned about high-stakes tests that are used to determine promotions and graduations despite such shortcomings.
The two did one study using test questions that included portions of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Russell worked on two other studies focusing on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, which, beginning with next fall's 10th graders, will require Massachusetts students to pass an exam to graduate.
"One important thing is for people to be aware of this and to take these single test scores a little less seriously," said Russell, who opposes using a single test to determine promotions or graduations.
Why do computer-savvy students have a problem with writing an essay by hand?
Russell, who talked with some of the students, said, "They talk about their hands cramping up within 15 minutes. It's like they don't have the muscular endurance anymore."
The Massachusetts test gives students two hours to write a draft and an essay.
For special education students, he said, "When you look at the rough draft and the final draft, sometimes half of their text drops out of the final. They become distracted. They feel as though they've done the first draft. Why would I rewrite everything for the final draft?
"For other kids, it's literally harder. They have bad handwriting. Sometimes it's hard to edit on paper. They become used to moving things around and changing things on the fly [on the computer]. They can't do it on paper."
The work at Boston College showed that the computer format didn't make a significant difference on multiple-choice questions. But it did on open-ended questions and essays.
Keyboard skills also made a difference. Those who typed at least 20 words per minute did better overall on the computer than on paper.
Russell plans to present the latest study, of students in grades four, eight and 10 in Wellesley, Mass., at the American Educational Research Association meeting in New Orleans this month.
A report on the first two studies has been released by the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy. The report is available on the organization's Web site at www.nbetpp.bc.edu .
In Pennsylvania, the state test -- the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment -- is a paper-and-pencil test. Ultimately, it will be used to determine whether students receive seals of proficiency on their high school diplomas.
This month and last month, students in fifth, eighth and 11th grades across Pennsylvania are taking the math and reading PSSA tests. This year's cycle does not include a writing test. That will be in October for grades six, nine and 11.
An online computer version of the writing test is being tried in some school districts this spring.
Another important test for many students is the Scholastic Assessment Test. Both the SAT I, a reasoning test, and the SAT II, subject tests, are paper-and-pencil exams.
Brian O'Reilly, executive director of the SAT, said the College Board is working on a pilot of a computerized version of SAT I, which may be tried in about nine months.
Currently, some of the talented seventh- and eighth-graders who take the SAT I as part of a Johns Hopkins University program do so on computers.
Other, higher-level major exams, such as the Graduate Entrance Exam and the Graduate Management Admission Test, already have gone to a computer-only format.
In the Boston College research, one of the studies said the difference between computerized tests and paper-and-pencil was "more progress than the average student makes in an entire year and could raise a student's score on [the test] from the 'needs improvement' to the 'passing' level."
In another of the studies, Russell found an interesting pattern.
When the scorers knew which essays were written by hand and which were composed on a computer, they gave higher scores to the handwritten essays.
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