THE COMPUTER VS. THE PEN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF WORD PROCESSING IN A HONG KONG SECONDARY CLASSROOM

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to find out how two groups of .HK secondary students adapted to the writing media of pen and word processor, by looking at raters’ evaluations of Content, Organization, Vocabulary, Language Use, and Mechanics of 18 compositions produced over one year following a process approach. It was found that students in the Computer group, on the whole, wrote better than those in a Pen group. According to the Jacobs et al. (1981) Composition Profile, all aspects of writing except Content and Organization showed highly significant differences, with the Computer group exhibiting superior performance. After the first composition, the Computer group scored significant differences in all aspects of composition except Content, which had a nearly significant result. If we allow the Computer group the period of about one composition for adjustment to the computer medium, then they dearly outperformed the Pen group in their compositions.

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