description- – The studies reported here focus on the effects of mode of administration of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) in grades 4, 8, and 10. These studies, which draw on earlier studies, also examine the mode of administration effect at different levels of keyboarding speed and for students who received special education (SPED) accommodations in the classroom. Also explored were mode of administration effects for AlphaSmarts and eMates, two portable writing devices. Study participants included 152 4th graders, 228 8th graders, and 145 10th graders who were randomly assigned to write their MCAS essays on paper or on the computer. Essays were scored by teachers and advanced graduate students using MCAS scoring materials, with handwritten essays transcribed and printed on the computer so that scorers would not know whether the essay was originally written by hand or not. Overall, students performed significantly better when they composed essays on the computer. Students who performed both the Language Arts Composition and open-ended questions on the computer scored 4 to 8 points higher on a scale ranging from 200 to 280. The effects were about the same in all grades, but it appeared that students receiving special education services for language arts benefited even more from computer use. (Contains 26 tables, 8 figures, and 56 references.) (SLD)
subjectcollectiondatepublishercreator description- – This article builds on two previous studies (Russell, 1999; Russell&Haney, 1997) that explored the effect mode of administration, that is computer versus paper-andpencil, has on student performance on open-ended items requiring written responses. Whereas the two previous studies have focused on middle school students, the study presented here focuses on students in eighth and tenth grade. In addition, whereas the previous studies examined the effect on relatively short open-ended items that ranged from two to thirty minutes in length, this article focuses on extended composition items designed to be completed during two 45 to 60 minute blocks of time. Finally, whereas the previous studies focused on students attending an urban school district that had just begun placing large numbers of computers in its schools and which generally performs below the state average on state tests, this article focuses on students attending school in a suburban district in which computers are used regularly in most classrooms and which generally performs well above the state average on state tests. Given the increasing emphasis many states are placing on student performance on state-level tests, the study presented here provides further evidence that state-level tests containing open-ended items are under-estimating the achievement of students accustomed to using computers for writing.
collectiondatepublishercreatorformat collectiondatepublishercreatorformat
