1st and 2nd stage students of basic school as writers by computer: does a longer-term computer use experience guarantee better results in text creation?
The Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 (HTM 2014) stipulates, among other things, that the Estonian education system will switch to e-assessment at all school levels. It is also unavoidable to assess text creation skills in language and literature. The article provides an overview of the general results of students’ computer-written texts based on the text creation part of the primary school (stage I and II) e-tests, tested in October 2019. A previous quick analysis of the survey revealed that primary school students had fewer experiences using word processing programs at school. A literature review shows that this can most likely be an obstacle to achieving good results in the text creation part of e-tests. The analysis results described in this article showed that lower grade students performed worse on the task of writing an e-mail. However, there were no differences in the writing of narrative texts. The most significant differences were in the written communication skills assessed in the e-mails; the other indicators were relatively similar. There were also considerable differences in the frequency of using digital equipment at school in general and in mother tongue lessons. Low use of digital tools also explains the overall relatively low averages in text creation outcomes. However, it does not necessarily support the assumption made about lower word processing skills of lower-stage students. The research results lead to the conclusion that if we want to assess students’ writing skills based on computer-written texts, it is necessary to consider how to ensure that all students have achieved sufficient computer skills so as not to negatively affect text creation.
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