Comparison Analysis of Grade Level Implementation of Published Keyboarding Skills Based on International Society for Technology in Education (ITSE) Standards and States in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS)

The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation of grade level implementation of published keyboarding skills based on International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) national standards and individual states governed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). The Internet served as the medium for collecting the published data.

Accessing the official state websites and comparing standards, curriculum guidelines, competency profiles, benchmarks, and/or frameworks from each state governed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) accomplished this correlation. The states governed by SACS and were included in this study are: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. After assessing the individual state standards, those standards were compared to the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) national standards. These comparisons were done during the spring of 2003.

This current study provided significant information by pointing out that students are learning technology skills at a much younger age and retaining that information to use throughout their educational endeavors. This is a significant contribution or finding in lieu of the fact that curriculum guidelines need to keep up with current technological advances and learning curves of today’s students. It was found that for the general consensus of this study, grade level implementation of published keyboarding skills based on the comparison of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards and the states governed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), was that keyboarding is being introduced in middle school level standards. It was also found after the comparison that Tennessee was the only state not offering introductory keyboarding or touch-typing at elementary and middle school grade levels.

This study has implications for administrators, educators, and instructional designers involved with collaborating skill development with curriculum incorporation and implementation to revisit when their systems offer instructional keyboarding skills.