An error analysis of selected abbreviations, derivatives, and principles in the shorthand notes of beginning stenograph machine shorthand students

The problem of this study was to determine the error rates for selected abbreviations, derivatives, and principles of Stenograph machine shorthand. Sub-problems were to determine which abbreviations, derivatives, and principles were perceived by machine shorthand teachers to be the most difficult for their students to learn; to compare teachers' perceptions of difficulty with error rates obtained from students' machine shorthand notes; and to determine what types and patterns of errors occurred in students' machine shorthand notes.

Checklists sent to 100 machine shorthand teachers provided data on which abbreviations, derivatives, and principles teachers perceived the most difficult for their students to learn. Two word lists and new-matter letters, dictated to 152 beginning machine shorthand students by their teachers, provided data on rates, types, and patterns of errors for 17 selected abbreviations and derivatives and 28 selected principles.

Major conclusions and recommendations were:

1. Of the abbreviations and derivatives, more than half of the forms written for enclosure and usually were errors. Of the principles, two-thirds or more of the forms written for -T omitted in past tense of KT ending, -SHS for SHUS, INT for INTER/ENT for ENTER, and -FM for SM ending were errors.

2. Of the abbreviations and derivatives, usually, usual, and enclosure were perceived by teachers to be the most difficult for their students to learn. Of the principles, -FM for SM ending, -NGS for NKSHUN, long vowels, -BGS for KSHUN, and -H omitted in TH ending were perceived to be the most difficult.

3. The correlations of error rates with perceived difficulty showed a substantial relationship for abbreviations and derivatives but a negligible relationship for principles.

4. The error types with the highest percentages of errors were too many letters or strokes for abbreviations and derivatives, prefix principles, and suffix principles; too few letters or strokes for general principles; and substitution for vowel principles.

5. Based on the most frequently occurring error patterns, the principles W for silent W in WR beginning, K for COM, and -L for LY should be eliminated. For the principle I for Y ending, short I should be written for "Y" in all words ending in "Y."