Impact of software design on on-line text reconstruction

Overview & Synopsis

This study examines the impact of software design on user practices concerning progression and performance while working on a text reconstruction activity that is preceded by an audiovisual presentation. The entries of participants during their first task of a science-based on-line activity aimed at French-speaking University students are analyzed. The entries of 97 students working on the first activity are described in detail, and then the impact of correctness on terminating the first activity of a larger population of 142 students is examined. Students of varying degrees of motivation and language knowledge appear to personalize the task. Users generally proceeded in a linear fashion, although the option of skipping from one sentence or one paragraph to another within the text is fully available. The immediate feedback after mistakes appears to encourage users to re-enter a new spelling or conjugation of the word or a new word. While high-frequency grammatical words were often entered, avoidance of more difficult words was also recurrent. The findings suggest that users do rely upon meaning as well as language knowledge when searching for answers. There is a greater short-term retention of words in the first paragraph of the text and of text incorporated within the visual supports. While the use of dots representing letters is not relied upon by users, the immediate feedback appears to offer learners the opportunity to immediately review common mistakes such as homophones or word endings. This immediacy of feedback is a strength of computer learning that is often difficult to achieve in a classroom.