THE EFFECT OF WORD-PROCESSORS ON THE SPELLING ERRORS AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE NUMBER OF TYPING AND HANDWRITING SPELLING MISTAKES OF STUDENTS AT ISLAMIC AZAD UNIVERSITY, TAFT BRANCH

The development of technology is so widespread that it is inevitable in every aspect of human life. The use of Internet and computer among the literate is increasingly observable. The change of the trend from pen to keyboard among teachers, instructors and scholars makes the use of word document highly accessible to the scholars. However, the issue is highly debatable. There are some advantages for typing over writing in hands, but almost nothing is at hand that can account for its relevance. Typing can affect the accuracy of the spelling because every letter can be broken away from the word especially for non-master typists, if bottom-up processing is considered to be acceptable. However, it’s always been noticed that when students type an essay, if the Spell Check Software of the Word is disabled, they may make unconscious mistakes that can be avoided while they write it in hands, that is, using pen and paper. The main purpose of this research was the possible difference between the studentsʹ making of spelling mistakes in typing and writing in hands , in case that the Spell Check Software of the Word is disabled. 30 advanced English students studying English Translation at Taft University were chosen. The questions were whether typing in word document results in more errors than writing in hands. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between typing and writing mistakes among university students regarding the number of spelling mistakes they may make, and word-processors have no effect on them. In order to reject the null hypothesis a study on the differences between typing and writing in hands will be conducted. The students will attend the experiment in two ways. First, a text will be dictated for them orally as they type. The same group of students was then invited to take part in another test in which the same dictation was told, but this time they were required to write it in hands rather than typing it. In order to test the hypothesis suggested in this study, the subject scores were analyzed using Paired Sample Test. Findings indicate that when students type an English text, they make more spelling mistakes than the time they write it in hands.