The NCSeT Kentucky ETEXT Study was designed to collect and analyze student usage data across a broad range of Kentucky Schools to identify patterns of student use of electronic reading supports and the relationship of these patterns to individual learner characteristics and performance as those students used the program Read & Write Gold (RWG).
The NCSeT KY ETEXT Study was designed to collect and analyze ETEXT/Read & Write Gold (RWG) student usage data across a broad range of Kentucky Schools to identify patterns of student use of electronic reading supports and the relationship of these patterns to individual learner characteristics and performance. Kentucky is in a unique position to examine these issues as a result of the statewide proliferation and availability of text reader software and availability of textbook core content in a digital format. To date, approximately 90% of KY schools have acquired a site license for Read and Write Gold software from Texthelp, Inc.
ETEXT/Read & Write Gold (RWG) usage data was collected electronically from 23 Kentucky schools by voluntary submission. All of these schools employed an RWG software installation mode known to be used by the most frequent users (i.e., Teacher Tool Kit set-up). This type of RWG software set up allows electronic extraction of individual student RWG usage data using a program developed by Texthelp. Data was collected electronically from the 23 schools for approximately 400 students for the last two school years (06/07 &07/08) on student frequency/ duration and patterns of use of the text reader software. Analysis of this data indicates students were using the software an average of 63 minutes per month per student in 06-07 and 54 minutes per month per student in 07-08. School averages of RWG usage for minutes per month per student ranged from 5 to 245 minutes. Even when the most active individual users were identified, the student showing the most frequent usage for the most recent school year was only at 260 minutes per month, or only a little over four hours. This data indicates that use of RWG in these schools was too infrequent or sporadic to allow any conclusions to be drawn regarding impact on learning and performance for students involved in this study. The data indicates that numerous students do not log into RWG on a regular basis and the majority of use tends to occur during state testing months (April & May), which is when 19 of the 23 schools used RWG to provide an oral accommodation for students participating in the Kentucky state assessment online (i.e., CATS Online).
It should be noted though that since school participation in this study and subsequent submission of this data was voluntary, it cannot be conclusively stated that it fully represents the level of ETEXT/RWG usage across all Kentucky schools.