Typing Skill Acquisition

The field of "motor skill learning" encompasses numerous areas of research. Typically, the term, "motor skill," refers to any skill which involves movement and the outcome of some action. The ability to engage in such behaviors generally comes through dynamic exploratory activity. This process is well illustrated by an analysis of typing skill acquisition.

Many activities in daily life require a significant degree of speed, precision, and forcefulness (Young, 1988, p. 1). Moreover, several of these abilities are not generally possessed by novices. Therefore, the more complex human behaviors require skill acquisition, or learning. Learning can be defined as a "process that results in a relatively permanent change in behavior brought on by experience" (Higgins, 1991, p. 134). The two learning stages include both primary and later learning. With primary learning, new environments take on meaning. This phase is characterized by a high degree of cognitiveconscious involvement, as the learner attempts to understand what is expected. In contrast, during the later learning stage, new associations and concepts are formed.

Skill can be thought of as a person's competence in dealing with their world; it's the individual's ability to "consistently achieve a goal under a wide variety of conditions" (Higgins, 1991, p. 125). With motor skills, these goals are realized through the "execution of organized movement." Learners must control their actions in a mann

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quite common. With positive transfer, skills that a student may have learned in one situation facilitate the learning of a new skill. Typically, beginning typing students have no effective prelearning level of skill. These individuals tend to be limited by cognitive rather than physical constraints. Such limits may include, for example, the representation, memory retrieval, and serial processing functions (Gentner, 1983, p. 246). Therefore, at least in the initial phases of training, any previous learning which enhanced the student's analytic or intellectual capacities might also help them learn how to type. As typing students acquire more skill, however, different sorts of constraints begin to operate. The more expert typists tend to be limited by such physical factors as muscle strength, the inability of overlap movements involving the same finger, and the distance which their fingers must travel (Gentner, 1983, p. 246). For these typists, any prior learning activity which enhanced manual dexterity or emphasized manipulative activity might additionally facilitate their ability to type. In contrast to positive transfer, negative transfer involves prior learning which is incompatible with the requirements of a newly ac

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