Japanese college students´ typing speed on mobile devices

In previous work on mobile learning, students used cellphones and pocket computers (PDAs) primarily to view study materials and answer quizzes. But anecdotes imply that Japanese students type faster on cellphones than on desktop PCs, suggesting that students could use mobile devices to take notes and write reports. This paper is a first quantitative investigation into the ability of Japanese students to enter text on mobile devices. In 2-minute transcription tasks, 24 Japanese university students typed Japanese: English at 8:7 wpm on miniature QWERTY thumb keyboards, 10:9 on onscreen QWERTY keyboards, 17:5 on cellphones, 23:14 on desktop PCs, and 31:30 with pencil and paper. 5-minute composition speeds were slightly less in the student´s native Japanese, and about half in English. Transcription errors were rare in Japanese, but more frequent in English, especially on mobile devices. Students preferred typing on desktops and cellphones. This data suggests that Japanese students could take notes and write reports on their mobile phones, but would require training before using PDAs and writing in English. Future work includes longitudinal studies learning various input methods, including handwriting recognition.