Effects of computer word processing on the creative writing of college composition students /

Abstract

This thesis examines research in computers and creativity, pointing out that few studies exist to tell us how computers affect the creative products of adult writers. The first section of this thesis summarizes the existing research, noting where individual studies may be relevant to the study of creativity in adult writers. The second and third sections of this thesis describe an in-class writing experiment performed at Youngstown State University during spring semester, 2001. In the experiment, 68 beginning college writers in five "Writing I" classes wrote a narrative on a prompt. Half the students in each class wrote their essays by hand, and half used Microsoft Word 97, a popular word processing program. Three judges rated the essays on three creativity-related criteria: idea, word choice, and development/organization. The ratings, analyzed using an Analysis ofYariance (ANaYA), showed a slight, statistically insignificant tendency toward better performance when writers used word processors. Male students showed negligible improvement when using the computer; however, female students scored nearly 10% higher on the computer in both the idea and development/ organization criteria. Overall, word count increased by over 18% when subjects used the computer. The final section of the thesis discusses the results of a questionnaire, "Technology in the Classroom," which asked 56 students eight detailed questions about their history with computers, their experience and level of comfort with them, and their experience and satisfaction with research using the Internet. The vast majority of respondents have at least some computer, word processing, and Internet experience, and nearly half claim to have "extensive" experience.