Date of Award

7-1-1971

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

Abstract

Statement of the Problem: The problem of this study was to determine whether or not a significant relationship existed between the proofreading performance of senior high school business students and their language arts ability. To solve the problem, the following null hypothesis was tested:

With proofreading performance as the criterion variable, the variables of reading ability and spelling ability make no significant predictability, either singly or in combination.

Procedures: Reading ability was measured by The Nelson-Denny Reading Test. Spelling ability was measured by 50 randomly selected words from a list of 200 Commonly Misspelled Words published by Pitman Publishing Corporation. Proofreading performance was measured by four proofreading tests. Tests were administered during March, 1971 to 221 senior high school business students in selected high schools in the Counties of Lambton, Middlesex, and Elgin in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Participants were required to type and correct errors in three of the four proofreading tests. One test was corrected by the participants writing in the corrections. Two of the four tests contained spelling and typing errors placed in the copy by the researcher. Two tests were adapted from a Royal Typing Test. Time was recorded and used as a variable.

The methods of statistical analysis used were multiple correlation, multiple regression, analysis of variance, canonical correlation, and related t test of means.

Results: 1. With proofreading performance measured by the number of errors found or missed, reading ability and spelling ability predicted proofreading performance. The null hypothesis was rejected at the .05 level.

2. With proofreading performance measured by the time required to complete a test, reading ability and spelling ability predicted proofreading performance in three of the four tests. The null hypothesis was rejected at the .05 level.

3. The product-moment correlation between reading and proofreading was significant at the .01 level. The same correlation was even more significant between spelling and proofreading performance.

4. Using the stepwise backward regression analysis, with the criterion variable being the number of errors missed, spelling was the most important predictor variable.

5. The participants showed no significant difference in reading ability or spelling ability according to the type of elementary school attended.

6. When proofreading performance was measured by the number of errors missed in Proofreading Tests 1 and 2, the time of day the tests were completed was not significant.

7. The participants found more typing errors than spelling errors when proofreading copy containing errors than spelling errors when proofreading copy containing errors, but they found more errors when they typed and made corrections than when they corrected the copy using a pen.

Conclusions: The following major conclusions emerged from this study:

1. Reading ability and spelling ability predict proofreading performance. Spelling was a better predictor than reading when proofreading was measured by the errors missed. More significant correlations were found in predicting the errors that would be found in others' work than in finding one's own errors.

2. The participants missed fewer of their own errors when they proofread and made corrections in their work as they typed rather than waiting until they had finished typing the material.

3. No student was able to proofread with 100 per cent accuracy.

4. A good vocabulary and the ability to comprehend what one reads were more beneficial for proofreading others' work than for detecting errors in one's own work.

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