• Students are introduced to the keyboard in 10 or fewer sessions by 67.9 percent of the participating elementary teachers.
• Only half of the participating elementary teachers who were currently teaching keyboarding used one to ten sessions for developing techniques after the keyboard was introduced.
• Approximately 42 percent of the participating teachers indicated that the length of these sessions was 10 minutes of less.
• A maximum of two-and-one-half hours of instruction was provided for initial learning of the keyboard.
• Maximum time reported for technique development after initial keyboarding instruction was seven and one-half hours.²

Based on the above responses, it is apparent that many elementary students are receiving less than 10 hours of keyboarding instruction.  As business educators, we are fully aware that an average of 10 hours of instruction is inadequate if our intended outcome is an efficient level of keyboarding skills.In an attempt to provide reasonable guidelines to questions about how much keyboarding instruction is necessary for the development of an adequate, usable skill, what type of instruction should be provided, and what degree of expertise should the teacher possess, business educators have reported results from various studies conducted over short periods of time -- usually no longer than 30 hours of instruction.  In many of these studies, only speed achievement is provided.  Accuracy results are usually not reported because the focus of early instruction should not prematurely emphasize accuracy.

Results of a longitudinal study

A preferable investigation would be to study students for a longer period of time.  However, longitudinal studies of elementary grade students' speed and accuracy achievement have been difficult to conduct because of the limited number of extended programs currently in existence.  One such program available for examination was in a pilot school participating in the Indiana State Department of Education's Buddy Project.  In this school, it was possible to follow student progress over a two-year academic periods.  It should be noted that students also were provided with microcomputers to use at home during this two-year period.The fourth grade students in the pilot project school were introduced to the alphabetic keyboard during September of 1988, before  they were required to input words or sentences as a part of their regular classroom lessons.  This instruction occurred in daily sessions of 30 minutes for four weeks.  Then students used the microcomputer and their new keyboarding skill at least one-half hour daily for the remainder of the year.  While this time was not necessarily part of a formal keyboarding skill development program, students did use the microcomputer to enter words, sentences, and paragraphs relating to their classroom learning assignments.

At the end of the school year, two 3-minute timings were administered to determine speed and accuracy achievement of the students.  They were permitted to make corrections as they typed.  An analysis of types of uncorrected and undetected errors was completed as well.  The basis for this analysis was a study of uncorrected and undetected errors made by high school and college students conducted by Schmidt and Joyner.³ They used the following categories:  transpositions, extra letters and spaces, omitted letters and spaces, incorrect letters and words, omitted words, added, omitted, or incorrect punctuation, format errors, and other. At the end of the first year of this study, the mean speed of fourth grade students was 24.47 words per minute.  Scores ranged from 9.3 wpm to 46 wpm.  The results of the first year's study is consistent with the move from the first to the second level of skill acquisition, determined by West and Sabban to be in the high teens to low twenties.⁴ The mean accuracy score was 1.66 uncorrected errors per minute.  The types of errors made are identified in Table 1.

The most frequent uncorrected error was omitted spaces, representing 19.1 percent of the total errors. 

Next was incorrect letters, representing 16.2 percent of the total; then omitted letters, representing 12.3 percent of the total.  The fourth and fifth ranking errors were extra spaces and omitted words, representing 10 and 9.6 percent respectively.  this was 67.2 percent of the uncorrected and undetected errors.  Omitted or added letters and spaces accounted for 49.7 percent of the errors.During the second year of this study, 44 returning students, now fifth graders, also had daily opportunities to keyboard.  At least 30 minutes per day were devoted to inputting words, phrases or sentences.  At the end of the second year, once again two 3-minute timed writings were administered.  The mean speed was 33.50 words a minute, a gain of approximately nine words per minute over the year.  Speed scores ranged from 12 wam to 60 wam.  The standard deviation indicated more variability in the mean.

Accuracy, as reported in the form of uncorrected and undetected errors, did not change significantly.  Average errors for three minutes dropped from 1.6 errors per minute to 1.45 errors per minute.  The types of errors were ranked in the following order:  omitted letters, incorrect letters, extra letters, omitted spaces.  These errors represented 64 percent of the errors.  Rather than omitted words, transpositions now became the fifth ranking type of error.

Omitted and extra spaces and letters represented 51.8 percent of the errors during the second year of the investigation.

Some thoughts about the study

What do the results of this two-year study of 44 fourth-grade students suggest?

• Speed achievement mean increased based on opportunity to input information, but only by approximately nine words per minute.
• Accuracy of the timed writings (in the form of uncorrected and undetected errors) did not change over the year.  Omitted and added letters and spaces account for at least 50 percent of the uncorrected and undetected errors.

The one major difference between the students' achievements reported in the study of a school in the Indiana Buddy project and other studies in the literature is the consistent opportunity to use the microcomputer over a two-year period.  Students participating in studies conducted in a shorter period of time often do not have the opportunity to keyboard on a regular basis.While speed achievement did increase over the second year, the approximate nine-word-per-minute gain on the mean speed seems small when we consider that students had a minimum of two-and-one-half hours of time on the microcomputer per week.  According to typewriting experts, regular attention to technique and the use of progressive timings and other speed development techniques identified in any of our major typewriting textbooks are the means by which teachers foster the development of speed achievement.While it was not possible to evaluate the errors made and corrected by the students, those that were uncorrected and undetected provide interesting thoughts.  We should be reminded initially of West's studies, indicating that the errors in letters are randomly distributed, and specialized drills do not assist the student in eradicating errors.⁵ 

Only correct practice will resolve the accuracy problem.  This practice should focus on speed tests, at rates determined by the individual student and teacher, followed by the return to a controlled timing for accuracy.In noting the rank of incorrect letters as uncorrected errors in both years of the study, both years remain as second rank.  Since improving accuracy requires attention to accuracy, it is apparent that more instruction time committed to the development of accuracy is necessary if these accuracy rates are going to improve.One interesting possibility about improving accuracy on microcomputers emerged from this study.  Keyboards of micromputers vary considerably as to sensitivity, and it is easy to add or omit letters and spaces.  Feedback about the individual's touch on his/her keyboard may be one way to reduce errors.  This type of feedback can be provided by alerting students to watch for these problems and by providing time for students to note the problem.  If students can learn to control their touch, they can eliminate many of their uncorrected errors.

Implications for business educators

One of the findings of the DPE national study of elementary school keyboarding is that better planning is needed to assure the continuous development of keyboarding skill.  Only 25 percent of the teacher respondents reported a plan was in place in their school that would assure continuous application of keyboarding skills after initial keyboarding instruction.⁶If keyboarding skill development and reinforcement techniques are used in an articulated program, as opposed to simply providing keyboard time, students should be able to attain higher levels of accurate keyboarding skill.  This will require the cooperative efforts of business and elementary educators.  Most elementary educators do not have the specialized teaching techniques required to teach keyboarding.  Only 12 percent have had formal preparation in teaching this psychomotor skill.  However, according to the national study, there were several circumstances under which at least 40 percent of the respondents believed cooperation could take place.  These were:

• business educators providing inservice for elementary educators,
• business educators as resource persons, and
• team teaching.

Yet when these respondents were asked if they received any help from business educators, only 12 percent replied positively.  Perhaps this is due in part to lack of communication, unclear roles and responsibilities, and lack of established guidelines.Summary
In reviewing the results of the DPE study of keyboarding speed and accuracy achievement of elementary grade students, it is apparent that the levels of skill attained can be improved.  Implementation of regularly scheduled keyboarding skill development activities with classroom activities is an option.  This would require the cooperation of business educators.  Clearly, that cooperation should be initiated by business educators.  Doing so will provide a solid basis for the development of an efficient, usable skill that will enhance the use of the computer as a tool for school and employment purposes.
____________________
CAROLEE SORMUNEN is associate professor at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.

¹Sormunen, C.; Adams, M.E.; Berg, D.; and Prigge, L. A National Study of Instructional Practices and Perceptions of Elementary School Teachers About Typewriting/Keyboarding.  Little Rock, AR:  Delta Pi Epsilon, 1989.
²Ibid., p. 27-28.
³Schmidt, B. June and Joyner, Randy.  "Analysis of Undetected and Uncorrected Timed Writing Errors." Presented at NABTE Research Conference, Chicago, IL March 22, 1989.
⁴West, Leonard and Sabban, Y.  "Analysis of Stroking Habits of Novice Through Expert Typists."  Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 24:1-12.
⁵Ibid.
⁶Robinson, J.; Erickson, L.; Beaumont, L.; Crawford, J.; and Ownby, A.  Typewriting Learning and Instruction Cincinnati, OH South-Western 1979.