Abstract
Due to their multifunctionality, tablets offer tremendous advantages for research on handwriting dynamics or for interactive use of learning apps in schools. Further, the widespread use of tablet computers has had a great impact on handwriting in the current generation. But, is it advisable to teach how to write and to assess handwriting in pre- and primary schoolchildren on tablets rather than on paper? Since handwriting is not automatized before the age of 10 years, children's handwriting movements require graphomotor and visual feedback as well as permanent control of movement execution during handwriting. Modifications in writing conditions, for instance the smoother writing surface of a tablet, might influence handwriting performance in general and in particular those of non-automatized beginning writers. In order to investigate how handwriting performance is affected by a difference in friction of the writing surface, we recruited three groups with varying levels of handwriting automaticity: 25 preschoolers, 27 second graders, and 25 adults. We administered three tasks measuring graphomotor abilities, visuomotor abilities, and handwriting performance (only second graders and adults). We evaluated two aspects of handwriting performance: the handwriting quality with a visual score and the handwriting dynamics using online handwriting measures [e.g., writing duration, writing velocity, strokes and number of inversions in velocity (NIV)]. In particular, NIVs which describe the number of velocity peaks during handwriting are directly related to the level of handwriting automaticity. In general, we found differences between writing on paper compared to the tablet. These differences were partly task-dependent. The comparison between tablet and paper revealed a faster writing velocity for all groups and all tasks on the tablet which indicates that all participants—even the experienced writers—were influenced by the lower friction of the tablet surface. Our results for the group-comparison show advancing levels in handwriting automaticity from preschoolers to second graders to adults, which confirms that our method depicts handwriting performance in groups with varying degrees of handwriting automaticity. We conclude that the smoother tablet surface requires additional control of handwriting movements and therefore might present an additional challenge for learners of handwriting.
Highlights
The rapid technological developments and advanced digitization in all aspects of human life require research to assess the significance of how to impart knowledge to students via these new media
The comparison between tablet and paper yielded differences only for the children groups for the VISUAL MOTOR INTEGRATION (VMI) as well as the MOTOR COORDINATION (MC) such that both groups showed a better performance on paper compared to the tablet condition for both tasks
Regarding the number of inversions in velocity (NIVs) only the preschool children produced more NIVs on paper compared to the tablet (p = 0.030)
Summary
The rapid technological developments and advanced digitization in all aspects of human life require research to assess the significance of how to impart knowledge to students via these new media. The teacher’s challenge is to use the technology and help students in mastering new subjects in a creative, autonomous, critical, and communicative way. New technologies such as tablets are currently only selectively used in schools (at least in Germany) as revealed by the International Computer and Information Literacy Study in 2013 (Bos et al, 2014). In support of the latter, the purpose of our study was to investigate whether it makes a difference for beginning learners (preschoolers and second graders) to write on a tablet screen compared to on common paper We compared these results to those of experienced writers (adults) to explore how the use of tablets influences groups with different levels of handwriting abilities
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