Abstract
In many classrooms across the globe, students are expected to comprehend and produce handwritten and computer-generated texts as soon as they start school. As we progress towards digitalisation in education, it has become necessary to understand the effects of writing modality on students’ literacy performance and development. The current meta-analysis integrates findings from 22 international studies involving 6168 participants, comparing the effects of handwriting and keyboarding on the writing and reading performance of primary-aged students. Moderator analyses were executed to determine if grade level, keyboarding experience, timed measurement of letter writing, types of tasks measuring letter writing fluency, and study design moderated modality effects on writing outcomes. Results revealed a significant effect size when comparing writing quality between handwriting and keyboarding, with students producing better quality passages via handwriting than keyboarding (ES = 0.53). Results also revealed that only grade level significantly moderated the effect size for letter writing fluency and written word production. Findings indicated that handwriting and keyboarding practices are associated with improvements on specific reading skills in primary education, with no clear superiority of modality. We discuss implications for literacy research and teaching both locally and globally.
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Data availability
The dataset generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
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This research was funded by The Ian Potter Foundation (ID20190465).
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AAM: conceived the original idea for the manuscript. AAM and DV: developed the theory and performed the computations. AAM: verified the analytical methods. All authors were involved in the reviewing process. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. AAM, DV and DP-P: wrote the manuscript with input from all authors.
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Appendix 2
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Appendix 3
See Figs.
Statistics for Each Study and Associated Forest Plots for Letter Writing Fluency. KB keyboarding, HW handwriting
2,
Statistics for Each Study and Associated Forest Plots for Written Word Production. KB keyboarding, HW handwriting
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Statistics for Each Study and Associated Forest Plots for Writing Quality. KB keyboarding, HW handwriting
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Malpique, A.A., Valcan, D., Pino-Pasternak, D. et al. Effect sizes of writing modality on K-6 students’ writing and reading performance: a meta-analysis. Aust. Educ. Res. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00676-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00676-y