The goal of this study is to model pauses extracted from writing keystroke logs as a way of characterizing the processes students use in essay composition. Low-level timing data were modeled, the interkey interval and its subtype, the intraword duration, thought to reflect processes associated with keyboarding skills and composition fluency.…

This study compared gender groups on the processes used in writing essays in an online assessment. Middle-school students from four grades responded to essays in two persuasive subgenres, argumentation and policy recommendation. Writing processes were inferred from four indicators extracted from students' keystroke logs. In comparison to males, on…