Date of Award

2005

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the difference in writing effort associated with two methods, pencil and paper and handheld computers in the third grade classroom. The methods were compared in terms of the quality of the stories written, and the length of the stories in number of words, and time on task during writing of the stories. Three hypotheses were defined to identify the effect of writing efforts associated with the two methods, two classes and the effect on the interaction between the methods and the class. All three hypotheses were analyzed with a two-way MANOVA test. Two third grade classes with 40 students in Terre Haute, Indiana were selected to participate in this study during two data collection periods. Each student had to complete two written stories individually with pencil-paper and on a handheld computer. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test revealed the finding in the first main effect for writing efforts associated with the first methods-pencil-paper was shown to be significantly different [Wilks' Lambda Λ=.333, F (3,66)=44.109, p <.001, multivariate η 2=.667] from the second method-handheld computer affect in the combined DV of the score in the quality of the written stories, the length of the stories in number of words, and time on-task during writing of the stories in two classes. A follow-up univariate ANOVA results indicated that the effect of writing effort associated with the first method (pencil-paper) differed significantly from the second method (handheld computers) in the length of story in number of words [ F (1,68)=4.251, p =004, η 2 =.059] and the time on task [ F (1,68)=72.869, p =.000, η 2 =.517] but not in the score on the quality of story written in two classes. The second main effect for writing efforts associated with the two classes was shown to be significantly different [Wilks' Lambda Λ=.744, F (3,66)=7.582, p <.001, multivariate η 2=.256] on the combined DV of the quality of the stories written, the length of the stories in number words, and the time on-task during writing of the stories in two methods. A follow-up univariate ANOVA indicated that the effect of writing effort associated with Class One significantly different from Class Two on the time on task [ F (1,68)=16.318, p =.000, η 2 =.194] but not the length of story in number of words [ F (1,68)=.003, p =.959, η 2 =.000] and the quality of story written [ F (1,68)=.136, p =.713, η 2 =.002] between the two methods.

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