[nfb-talk] Study on Braille Writing

[Sheri Wells Jensen]

>Good Morning, NFBers,

My colleague and I are looking for folks willing to spend about a half hour 
participating in
>a research study on errors made
>in Braille typing.  I am Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguist at
>Bowling Green State University who is blind and uses braille
>daily.  I’ve been thinking about and writing about braille for
>the past six or seven years.  I’m very interested in advancing
>the general understanding of braille and in increasing braille
>literacy rates.  My colleague, Brad Gosche, and I are currently
>conducting a study examining common errors made—either on
>standard Braille typewriters or on computerized Braille
>keyboards—by adult members of the blind community who are
>proficient in Braille typing and typing on a standard print typewriter 
>keyboard.
>
>Over the past several years, I collected 1,600 of my own braillos
>to try to see what patterns I could discover.  What we’d like to
>do now is include more subjects to see what trends exist in the
>general population and capture any common patterns in brailling
>errors.  Our work does not indicate that braille is especially
>difficult or harder to work with than print.  We’re studying
>errors because errors can give clues about how people do the
>things they do.  Just as has been done with typing on a standard
>qwerty keyboard, we will use our data to better understand
>braille writing and hopefully provide some advice for learners
>who are struggling to learn to write more quickly and efficiently.
>
>In order to complete the study, we propose to conduct an analysis
>of 30 stimuli sentences typed by a variety of participants at a
>relatively quick pace.  Participants will be provided 30 Braille
>sentences.  After having read each short sentence, participants
>will be asked to type the sentence on his/her Braille keyboard at
>a relatively quick pace without returning to the prompt sentence
>for reference and without stopping to correct any errors made
>along the way.  They will also be asked to type the same sentences on a 
>qwerty keyboard.    When I did this, it took me about  a half hour to get 
>all the way done with both tasks.

>Errors made in the data collection process may be cited in the
>study.  However, participants' identity will be in no way associated with
>it in the final paper and/or presentation.

If you're willing to lend us a hand, pleased rop me an email at 
swellsj at bgsu.edu and I'll be very glad to send you the official sign-up 
rhetoric prescribed by our human subjects review board.  We have send you 
the sentences through the mail in hard copy, attached as a text file or 
whatever other way is handy for you, and you can respond either by doing 
the sentences on a Perkins brailler or a braille notetaker and emailing 
them back or putting them in the mail.  We're flexible about how this gets 
done.

Thanks for considering helping us out.  What I generally do is write up 
braille findings for the Braille Monitor, but I can also let participants 
know individually what results we find.

Best,

Sheri W-J