This review of 47 publications describes the development of standard and Dvorak keyboards, finding that, although most studies found Dvorak more efficient, many methodological weaknesses appear. Considers that current interest in Dvorak stems from concerns about productivity, workplace safety, and the need for keyboarding speed. (SK)

A study of the use of Pitman's shorthand as a means of handwritten data entry into computers concludes that it exhibits many features of a machinography or machine compatible script, and can compete with the QWERTY keyboard for speed in text entry. (EA)

Use of digraphs (pairs of letters representing single speech sounds) in keyboarding is facilitated by computer technology allowing analysis of speed between keystrokes. New software programs provide a way to develop keyboarding speed. (SK)

The assumption that letters automatically activate corresponding keypresses in skilled typing was investigated. Participants responded to the color of letters (congruent condition: responding finger was the one usually used to type the letter). Participants skilled in typing showed a congruency effect: unskilled participants did not (Experiment…

Third and fourth grade students (N=84) were randomly assigned by class to either covered or uncovered keyboards. All students received 30 minutes of keyboarding instruction for four weeks. Analysis revealed significant differences in speed but not in accuracy between the two main treatment groups.

This article describes an unconventional method to teach un-contracted braille reading and writing skills to students who are blind and have additional disabilities. It includes a keyboarding curriculum that focuses on the whole language approach to literacy. A special feature is the keyboard that is adapted with braille symbols. Un-contracted…

Background: It is well established that handwriting fluency constrains writing quality by limiting resources for higher order processes such as planning and reviewing. According to the "simple view of writing" then slow keyboarding speed should hinder the quality of keyboarded essay compositions in the same way that slow handwriting…

These materials were developed for a 20-hour class on computers in a cement manufacturing plant. (In the workplace, they were used in conjunction with Typing Tutor 6 software.) The course is intended for complete beginners who need to use computers on the job. Each of the four modules can be used alone. The document begins with a pretest and…

Five adults with developmental disabilities participated in a keyboard skills training program employing color coded keys and typing drills. Through typing skills, the subjects were taught basic computer operations such as taking disk directories, loading programs and executing the programs. Repetitious learning was the model used. Data collected…

Describes a keyboarding course based on the Donnelly method. The course was taught on a community college campus to children ages 8 to 13. (CH)

There has recently been a growing awareness that effective teaching, efficient schools, and quality data are related. The quality of information used to develop an instructional plan, run a school, plan a budget, or place a student in a class depends upon the school data clerk, teacher, counselor, and/or school secretary who enter data into a…

Discussion of the vagueness of queries and uncertainty of knowledge when searching in information retrieval systems focuses on searching proper names and using similarity measures, including phonetic similarity, typing errors, and plain string similarity. It is shown experimentally that all three approaches lead to significantly higher retrieval…

Production keyboarding is the process of completing a series of keyboarding and nonkeyboarding activities to produce final copy. It is an essential element in the training of business and office education students. This article provides a model in the form of a production process technique sheet. (JOW)

Finger-movement distances for alphabetic keys of standard and Dvorak keyboards were calculated for every digraph in the business vocabulary. Dvorak required 37% less distance and had more right-hand, home-row, same-row, and alternate hand reaches. (SK)

Discusses the differences between teaching keyboarding to elementary students and secondary students. Offers suggestions to business education teachers making the transition to elementary students. (JOW)