The computer medium in writing for discovery

Abstract

This study explores the possibility that writing on a computer can become unmediated thought, a kind of Vygotskian inner speech important to thought formation. Twenty-two college students were asked to respond to a set of heuristic questions regarding their choice of plays assigned in class, once using paper and pencil and once using a simplified word-processing facility. The two groups reversed the order of writing medium with the same assignments. Responses were longer and were judged more developed with the computer regardless of which medium students used first. A more in-depth study of a stratified sample showed: (a) that some students now feel profoundly disadvantaged writing by hand; (b) that even a student who felt uncomfortable on the computer wrote a longer, better developed response in that medium; and (c) that on an emotionally charged topic one student's text seemed to show thought in process, like what Bakhtin called “internally persuasive discourse.” Students' texts suggest that a computer-assisted tutorial may act like Vygotsky's “zone of proximal development,” which increases a student's ability to do intellectual work. Writing to discover on screen may create the kind of teaching movement in which students are particularly available for learning.