Personal computing device interfaces and their impact on learning in South African secondary school students
Date
2017
Authors
Wrigley, George Thomas
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Abstract
Education is an immensely powerful agent of development and innovation and as such, educational
outcomes are given high priority in most settings. The advent of highly functional mobile personal
computing (PC) devices such as tablet computers and related technologies has helped to generate
great interest in and hype surrounding educational technology and its potential to improve
educational outcomes, democratize knowledge and skills development and to kick-start
development, particularly in socio-economically depressed environments. However, education has
made use of technology from its very inception, with the written word itself being a prominent
example, making PC device-based educational technology simply a newer entrant into the field,
equally worthy of scrutiny along with other existing technologies. The written word plays a
fundamental role in learning and is therefore a key vehicle through which to examine the impact
of PC device-based educational technology on learning.
This dissertation examines the notion of the analogue (physical) and digital word and uses both
existing theoretical considerations and research experiments to better understand differences
which may exist between the two and the subsequent impact on learning. Existing empirical
evidence and a range of theoretical contributions are used to construct a theoretical framework
which argues for the uniqueness of the digital in comparison to its analogue predecessors. A
research experiment was conducted with high school-age research participants using tablet PCs
and printed paper to complete a reading task or a reading and note-taking task, followed by a test
on the text passage read approximately one week later. Results obtained suggest real, but weak
effects, with participants using paper performing better for questions which test factual recall in
the reading-only condition and better for questions testing conceptual understanding in the reading
and note-taking condition. These findings support the view that the digital word is not necessarily
equivalent to its analogue predecessors and point towards further research in this area. It is
concluded that further research is required in order to better understand the mechanisms which
underpin the digital word and that its primary strength lies in its ability to expand the usefulness
of the written word in conjunction with the more traditional analogue word.
Key words: educational technology, reading, handwriting, the digital word, tablet PCs e-learning.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by research in the discipline of Psychology.
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017.
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Citation
Wrigley, George Thomas (2017) Personal computing device interfaces and their impact on learning in South African secondary school students, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <https://hdl.handle.net/10539/24228>