Students that Type Well Test Well!
STUDENTS WITH STRONG KEYBOARDING SKILLS PERFORM BETTER ON ACT TESTING It may or may not come as a surprise that a strong typing skill has a positive impact on a student’s ability to perform well on a standardized test such as the ACT. In a test given to 140 Utah 11th grade students, the higher the student’s typing speed, the better they performed on average on their ACT test. Students scoring a 28 or higher composite score had a typing average near 70 WPM, where their counterparts scoring 15 or below had an average typing speed of only 36 WPM. KEYBOARDING SKILLS PROMOTE STUDENT SUCCESS Teachers and administrators looking for ways to improve overall student performance may need to look no further than to invest more time and effort into building keyboarding skills. Considering that high levels of coursework, tests, and general instruction are now computer based, it seems a logical conclusion that schools should be paying more attention to the level of proficiency that their students are achieving in keyboard mastery. “Teaching students proficient keyboarding skills removes roadblocks that limit performance. If students have learned all of the information needed for an assessment but are unable to type it onto the computer in a timely manner, their scores will – not properly reflect learning outcomes.” ~Beth Budinich JOB MARKET & COMPUTER SKILLS In the 2023 U.S. labor market, 92% of all careers now require some level of digital skills, yet 1/3 of workers are lacking in these foundational skills1. …