Budding Journalism: An Exploration of Zine Creation and its Benefits among Children through the use
This research report was supported by funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP)
Prepared by:
Nancy Kawaja, Master of Education (candidate) Ethan Draper, Research Assistant Dr. Conor Barker, Assistant Professor, Inclusive Education Dr. Erin L. Mazerolle, Assistant Professor, Psychology & Computer Science
Submitted to:
Daniel Stedman, Founder, Pressto May 25, 2022
This research report was supported by funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP)
Table of Contents Research Team 3
Research Context 3
Literature Review 4
Accessibility 4
Media Literacy 6
Digital Citizenship 7
Social Media Safety 7
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy 7
Pedagogy of Writing 8
Educational Applications of Artificial Intelligence 8
Literature Review Summary 9
Recommendations Stemming from the Literature Review 9
Review of Current Data Sources 10
Recommendations Stemming from the Review of Current Data Sources 11
Recommendations Based on User Trials 12
Future Research Directions 13
References 15
Research Team
This report was completed by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from St. Francis Xavier University.
Nancy Kawaja, B.Ed. is a graduate student in the Faculty of Education. Nancy has over 23 years experience as a special education teacher. She has worked within the Central Ottawa Catholic School Board, Special Education and Student Services department and is an expert in assistive and adaptive technology and Universal Design for Learning.
Ethan Draper is a research assistant and a student in the Faculty of Arts pursuing an honours degree in forensic psychology.
Dr. Conor Barker, Ph.D., R. Psych. is an assistant professor of inclusive education. Dr. Barker has over 15 years of experience in inclusive education as an educational assistant, classroom teacher, special programs teacher, and school psychologist. Dr. Barkerâs research focuses on inclusive practices in rural and minority language contexts, and the development of clinical competency and creative practice within school psychology.
Dr. Erin L. Mazerolle, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of psychology and computer science. Dr. Mazerolle is an expert in neuroscience with research interests in brain imaging, reproducibility, and knowledge translation. She has extensive research training, including postdoctoral positions at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the University of Calgary.
Research Context
Pressto is a writing and micro-journalism platform designed to support children and youth to produce short magazine products known as zines. Pressto uses proprietary software to assist students with the format and creation of attractive zines that can be used for student school work, extra curricular activities (e.g., student newspaper), or entrepreneurial tasks (e.g., sales and promotion of services). Pressto uses a streamlined writing process to assist students in formatting their zines, and, through the use of artificial intelligence, provides students with immediate feedback on the quality of their writing. Pressto purports that their software has the potential to engage students who may otherwise be reluctant to engage in writing tasks, and allows for students to improve their active writing voice necessary for critical writing and journalistic writing tasks. Pressto has been used in several educational settings across the globe, with testimonial support indicating its promise as a tool to develop a studentâs critical writing skills.
Pressto makes a number of claims on its promotional materials on its website indicating that the tool âhelps to develop media literacy, critical thinking, & strong writing skills by making journalism easy and loveable for K-12 studentsâ (Pressto, n.d.-a). Further, Pressto claims that âwe give voice and agency to students. Pressto is built for accessibility. Our cognitive behavioral therapy teaches critical thinking and media, communication, and life skills. Pressto leaves young people less susceptible to the manipulations of social mediaâ (Pressto, n.d.-b). While Presstoâs software and program certainly display promise, these claims have not been empirically validated by third party researchers.
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Thus, in this present report a team of researchers from St. Francis Xavier University explored Pressto software. Pressto has been deployed to several schools, including locally in the Halifax Region. Pressto software developers have also collected user data that was discussed with the research team. As an initial engagement study, this report describes and evaluates the claims being made by Pressto. Specifically, this report will support the ongoing development of Pressto by reviewing:
(1) the ways in which Pressto may increase a studentâs motivation and engagement in writing
(2) the ways in which Pressto improves student writing samples
(3) the ways in which Pressto can be used to improve critical thinking, media literacy,
and writing skills; and
(4) the impacts of the integration of cognitive behavioural therapy on student learning.
Thus, this report contains:
(1) A literature review of several of the key themes that are promoted by Pressto (e.g., critical thinking, media literacy) as well as an evaluation of the use of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in academic environments.
(2) A review of the data that has been collected by Pressto to date, and provision of recommendations of how this data can be organized to answer critical questions for Pressto.
(3) A proposal of further research that may support the efficacy of Pressto. If completed, the proposed research could be submitted for peer-review scrutiny to bolster Pressto product claims.
Literature Review
Our review of the extant literature explored the key themes that were identified by Pressto, through consultation with the founder of Pressto, Daniel Stedman, and review of the promotional materials available on the Pressto website. Specifically, this review explores terms including: accessibility, critical thinking, digital citizenship, social media safety, cognitive behavioural therapy, pedagogy of writing, and artificial intelligence in education. We aim to provide Pressto an overview of how these key terms and research areas are being described in the current literature. This section concludes with specific recommendations to support Pressto in its development, marketing, and promotion.
Accessibility
Accessibility can be defined as the extent that a product, device, service, or environment (in-person or digital space) is designed for the use or navigation of people who experience disabilities (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2016). In Canada, human rights
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legislation in each provincial jurisdiction requires that individuals with disabilities be afforded reasonable accommodations in all academic settings. Within Nova Scotia, Access by Design 2030 (Province of Nova Scotia, 2018) outlines Accessibility Standards in the areas of built environments; employment; access to goods and services; information and communications; transportation; and education for the province of Nova Scotia. Following the proclamation of the Accessibility Act (Bernard, 2017), accessibility is identified as a human right. Nova Scotia seeks to be accessible by 2030, that is, to assure that every Nova Scotian can participate fully within society. With respect to education, Access by Design 2030 states:
âStandards in this area will help to create learning environments in which all students can participate. These standards could address how students with disabilities get the instruction and learning materials they need. The standards will apply to primary, secondary, and post-secondary education.â (p. 8)
The National Center for Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) notes that although the concept of accessibility in educational environments may appear simple, in practice it is more complex and requires intentional design and action (CAST, n.d.). In educational environments, the design of informational formats and technological aids offers the opportunity to increase accessibility for students with disabilities.
Accessible formats are educational materials that are formatted to address barriers experienced by individual student learners so that they are useable for academic tasks. Some examples include large print, braille, optical character recognition, and audio texts.
Accessible technologies refer to universally designed hardware and software programs that allow all learners to access materials in a manner that supports and benefits everyone. Assistive technologies are designed to address specific barriers faced by learners with disabilities Examples of assistive technologies include: speech-to-text, text-to-speech, screen readers, and switch controls (CAST, n.d.).
Accessible digital learning environments and assistive technologies should be made available for students with disabilities, and all learners should be afforded equal access to learning materials. Accessibility in educational technology remains a major equity concern (Shaheen & Lohnes Watulak, 2019). Unfortunately, accessibility is often not considered as part of the initial design of digital education tools (Lewthwaite, 2011). One movement within education is Universal Design for Learning (UDL) which posits that accessibility will be maximized when it is considered from the initial design onwards (Rose, 2000). Inspired by advancements in neuroscience and architecture, UDL considers how designing learning environments in ways that are accessible for students with disabilities results in improvements for all learners.
One way to assess the accessibility features of products is through the use of the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT; Smith and Stahl, 2016). This template, maintained by the Information Technology Industry Council (Information Technology Industry Council, 2022), is used to determine if the product is accessible to all students, specifically those with disabilities. We predict that future software that will be purchased and used in schools in Canada will need to comply with accessibility norms and legislation within each province in Canada, and thus,
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achieving and promoting accessibility will be foundational to successful products in the education marketplace.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking refers to numerous processes including self-directed reasoning and making judgements based on evidence (Abrami et al., 2015; Willingham, 2020). A key feature of critical thinking is that it involves the analytic system of thinking (as opposed to the heuristic or intuitive system) and requires an individual to make judgments independent of their own opinions (Ku et al., 2019). Critical thinking skills are commonly referenced in academic and professional circles, yet it is not universally agreed upon how best to best define these skills, let alone develop these skills. Educational programs have attempted to teach these skills with limited success (Abrami et al., 2015; Willingham, 2020), though it is theorized that the opportunity for dialogue and engaging in problem solving (with authentic or real life problems) may be effective in the teaching of critical thinking skills (Abrami et al., 2015). In K-12 education, critical thinking often takes place through verbal discourses, group discussions, teacher directed questions, student posed questions, or dialogues following the presentation of new information, content, or controversy.
Critical thinking within the context of K-12 news or journalism education is an emerging area of research. A recent study of adolescents demonstrated that the ability to evaluate evidence from news reports was poor, and further demonstrated that adolescents with higher news media literacy had better critical thinking skills (Ku et al., 2019). As such, there is initial evidence to suggest that incorporating journalism and media studies into English language arts courses may offer an opportunity to engage students in critical thinking.
Media Literacy
The subject of media literacy involves considerations of public communication, including âadvertising and consumerism; quality of news and journalism; media ownership and consolidation; media violence and behavior; the representation of gender, class, and race; and mediaâs impact on public health and well beingâ (Hobbs & Jensen, 2009, p. 5). The general approach to media literacy instruction in schools has been to teach critical thinking and digital citizenship as it relates to the consumption of media, representations of culture in media, and creative applications of media (Fedorov et al., 2016). Thus, approaches to media literacy need to be in both consuming and producing media products. Media literacy involves more than teaching how to use a particular tool (e.g., word processor), as competence in the use of media involves a great deal more thought and action (Hobbs & Jensen, 2009). In todayâs media landscape, students need to be aware of how to critically evaluate sources of media information across several platforms to determine veracity (i.e., opinion vs. fact). Students must also consider that any content they produce has potential for a global audience. Further, students need to learn how to identify manipulated media (Mason et al., 2018), and what actions they can take in relation to engaging with false information presented in the media.
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Digital Citizenship
Digital citizenship refers to the way that an individual acts online in manners that are respectful, ethical, and their civic engagement (Jones & Mitchell, 2016). Digital citizenship encompasses virtual behaviours that are associated with participating in society more broadly, such as caring about social, environmental, and political issues (Thorson, 2012). Building from those concepts, digital citizenship education teaches students to engage respectfully with those who have differing beliefs, to use technology to engage with public leaders and shape public policy, and to have the critical thinking skills necessary to determine the validity of online sources of information (International Society for Technology in Education, 2022). Determining validity of digital sources is a growing area of importance, as students now have unprecedented access to local and global social media (Pangrazio & Cardozo Gaibisso, 2020). Media produced and shared online has not always been created with journalistic integrity and therefore digital citizenship now requires students to be able to interpret the ubiquitous streaming of information and media that they consume. Within the context of K-12 education in Canada, digital citizenship is an essential competency to support learning and living in a digitally connected world.
Social Media Safety
Despite serving as a valuable tool for civic, academic, and social enrichment, digital engagement also raises numerous areas of concern, especially for youth (Burbules, 2016). These include, but are not limited to: personal safety; identity theft; privacy; access to inappropriate content; social isolation; and exacerbation of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and poor sleep (Watson et al., 2022). Pangrazio and Cardozo Gaibisso (2020) argue that students must develop âskills to critically analyze the risks and opportunities encountered in the digital context and navigate these with agency and autonomyâ (p. 50), a concept colloquially known as social media safety. Walters et al. (2019) theorize that many children in the K-12 school system do not have the maturity level required to safely navigate these online environments and their consequences. As such, students require direct teaching and support to ensure that when engaging in social media platforms, they are able to experience the benefits of online connectivity without negative impacts (Pangrazio & Cardozo Gaibisso, 2020). Cybersecurity curricula is notably lacking for young children (Grey, 2011).
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Developed by Aaron T. Beck in the 1960s, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is a psychological therapy based on a cognitive model of treating mental illness (Beck & Fleming, 2021). As peopleâs perceptions of events impact their emotions and behaviours (Beck, 2020), clients and therapists use CBT to explore the relationship between a clientsâ thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. CBT aims to change distorted thinking and behavioural patterns by helping patients develop more adaptive thoughts. CBT is a well-researched and evidence-based treatment for numerous psychological conditions, including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and stress-induced disorders (Butler et al., 2006). Following a review of extant CBT literature, however, our research team did not find any published research related to applying CBT to
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academic learning. The integration of CBT into Pressto software to teach critical writing skills would be a novel approach, however, clear and tested guidelines do not exist that detail how to accomplish such an integration.
Pedagogy of Writing
Writing is a complex process that involves several cognitive skills to be used simultaneously, including language production, reading comprehension, executive function, motor dexterity, long-term memory, and short-term memory (Quinlan et al., 2012). Writing is an essential communication tool within many domains (both personal and professional), making the mastery of this skill to be of great importance to students. Despite the clear impetus to cultivate strong writers, writing skills in K-12 education across countries is inadequate. In K-12 classrooms, insufficient time is devoted to the instruction of writing; there are infrequent opportunities to practice these skills; and digital tools for teaching writing within the school environment are underutilized, despite the reality that many students are familiar and comfortable writing in digital contexts outside of school (Graham, 2019). Educators and scholars in writing instruction generally refer to processes of prewriting, writing, editing, and publishing (Tompkins, 1994) as standard approaches to the writing process. Through iterative revision of writing, the general quality of the written product improves. One feature of this process is feedback, that is most often provided by the classroom teacher, however, researchers have indicated that peer-review and peer editing has been an underused but necessary task for future writers (Holt, 2019). Graham (2019) further suggests that strategies such as dedicated writing time, increased professional development for teachers, and instructional tools and technology may facilitate the teaching of writing. By contributing to the pedagogy of writing, Pressto has an opportunity to meet this need for improved writing teaching in schools.
One potential instructional tool to improve student writing may be academic blogging, that is describing oneâs learning through an online medium. Academic blogging functions as an opportunity to question, reflect, and critically think about an array of topics, as well as facilitates the literary processes of brainstorming, conferencing, revising, and refining writing (Merchant, 2005). It further provides an opportunity for student writers to be cognizant of their audience (Tanti, 2012), a skill associated with writing quality (Corden, 2007). Developing learning activities that explore how different audiences will read and perceive a piece of online writing may be a useful addition to Pressto.
Educational Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to an area of computer science concerned with simulating human intelligent behaviour with machines. While it is unlikely that artificial intelligence (AI) will ever replace teachers, the application of AI to education has enriched the experience of both teachers and learners, and has many promising applications. For example, in writing instruction, AI (such as is implemented in Pressto) provides feedback to users, which may allow teachers to assign writing tasks more often by reducing the onerous task of providing individualized feedback (Akgun & Greenhow, 2021; Chen et al., 2020).
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As discussed with Mr. Stedman, AI allows Pressto to provide specific, immediate feedback to users, an approach which holds significant potential for improving writing skills. However, AI is associated with many potential pitfalls that pose risks to its application in all fields, including education. In recent years, research and general public awareness of discriminatory and unfair AI behaviour has increased (e.g., Chung, 2019; Johnson, 2021; Metz, 2021). It is well documented that AI systems generated by machine learning algorithms can perpetuate bias in harmful ways (Akgun & Greenhow, 2021). AI relies on training data collected and analyzed by humans, as well as algorithms programmed by humans, and as such, systemic discrimination and discriminatory biases are inevitably carried over into AI-based applications (Akgun & Greenhow, 2021).
Improved representation among AI developers has been proposed as a means to help reduce AI bias and the resulting harms (Leavy, 2018). However, bias in machine learning remains unresolved and is an important topic of ongoing and future research (Mehrabi et al., 2021). Such bias may contribute to the problematic positivity scores noted by the researchers during Pressto user trials. It is unlikely that discriminatory biases will ever be completely eliminated from AI, and it has been proposed that making students and teachers aware of AI biases is one technique to help mitigate their harm in educational settings (Akgun & Greenhow, 2021).
Literature Review Summary
Our comprehensive review of the literature explored key terms highlighted by Pressto, including accessibility, critical thinking, media literacy, digital citizenship, social media safety, CBT, the teaching of writing, and issues pertaining to the use of AI in education. Issues of accessibility and critical thinking, particularly in digital environments, are key issues for todayâs students. A review of the extant literature of using CBT in the teaching of writing and critical thinking skills found no research or evidence. There is a need to teach writing better in our schools, and the use of AI presents some opportunities and pitfalls. As such, our research team provides the following recommendations based on the literature review completed.
Recommendations Stemming from the Literature Review
Accessibility
Revise the language used by Pressto related to accessibility to reflect what
accessibility means to teachers, as well as in the legal sense (as described above). When teachers, especially special education teachers, see the word accessibility they assume that it is available for students of all ability levels (e.g., with or without disabilities). Specify that Pressto means there are no financial barriers to participation in the free tier.
The developers of Pressto should consider explicitly testing Presstoâs compatibility with operating system accessibility features, and then stating the results of those tests.
We recommend that in the long term, Pressto consider increasing the accessibility of the product, to reach students of all learning abilities. This is a significant
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market and need in the education sector, and will likely be a requirement for
future publicly-funded contracts and orders.
Media literacy
While one of Presstoâs stated goals is to improve media literacy, further integration of media education is indicated to fully achieve this aim. Additional instruction or features to assist users in evaluating the bias and veracity in their own or otherâs media content may further this goal.
Social media safety Pressto is currently not a socially networked product; however, there is opportunity for Pressto to increase its educational and instructional content relevant to social media safety concepts by explicitly including lessons or integrated learning experiences within the Pressto platform.
Other terms used by Pressto Revise the language used by Pressto related to critical thinking and CBT to better reflect how these terms are used by teachers, academics, and the general public. Remove terms if the related features are not yet implemented. For example, as far as the researchers are aware, there are currently no features of Pressto that are related to CBT. After implementing features as explained by Mr. Stedman, such as reminding students to pause and reflect before publishing, a more accurate description might be âCBT-inspired.â
Pedagogy of writing
Develop pre-writing, writing, and editing phases within the Pressto platform, with
specific instruction and development of tools on how to complete these phases of
writing.
Include a peer-review or interactive review process to assist students in
communicating their content and intentions clearly.
Engage teachers by offering professional development activities related to how
Pressto can support teachers in teaching writing.
Artificial intelligence
Through user data, carefully observe potential benefits (e.g., improved writing samples, improved student engagement) and drawbacks (e.g., feedback errors, biased feedback, discriminatory feedback) of the AI used in Pressto.
Offer or suggest training to students and teachers on AI ethics (e.g., Payne, n.d.), to help mitigate the impact of harmful biases embedded in Presstoâs AI.
Support research aimed at reducing discriminatory and harmful biases in AI and increasing representation of marginalized groups among AI researchers.
Review of Current Data Sources
As observed during a demonstration provided by Mr. Stedman, Smartlook records the screens of Pressto users such that their interactions with Pressto can be tracked in real time. Mr. Stedman stated the Smartlook contains almost all Pressto sessions. The Smartlook recordings contain the userâs location and IP address for each session. There also appeared to be Smartlook
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functionality for tracking the users across sessions, but it was explained that this is not yet enabled for Pressto. The userâs interactions with Pressto can be replayed to observe a userâs writing session at a later time. This rich dataset has significant potential for understanding how interacting with Pressto influences the writing behaviour of students.
As described by Mr. Stedman, Pressto has had up to 1500 active users at one time. Pressto is currently used by 15 schools, including one with 1200 students and 75 teachers. Current usage is limited; however, Pressto predicts that usage will increase significantly in September 2022 after the new version of Pressto is released.
Recommendations Stemming from the Review of Current Data Sources
Ensure Pressto has permission from users to record their data, and that it is clear to users what data will be recorded, what it will be used for, how long it will be kept, and whether data will be saved by Pressto if deleted by the user.
Many Canadian schools avoid products that store data in other countries. A Canadian data-storing option should be offered for the Canadian market due to legal complications arising from the Patriot Act. Canadian data-storing options may also help enable research collaborations with Canadian universities.
Consider seeking approval from a research ethics committee for collecting and storing data that might be useful for academic research. Academic research articles cannot be published using data that was collected without such approval.
Examining changes in usersâ writing over time will be necessary to determine the impacts of using Pressto. Given that user names are displayed on the screen, a preliminary analysis of changes over time may be possible to achieve by manually linking sessions from the same users. The effectiveness of this approach will be highly dependent on the number of users who have engaged in multiple Pressto sessions.
Moving forward, enable Smartlook to organize sessions by user, so that writing can be automatically evaluated for changes over multiple sessions. In addition, storing metrics of interest (i.e., reading level, positivity, objectivity) in a database after each session would allow for the automatic creation of a dataset that could be used to measure changes in the metrics over sessions. If possible, the zine produced by the user at each session should also be stored in the database.
Alternatively, metrics could be manually coded and entered into a database by viewing the Smartlook recordings. The zines produced in each session could also be manually added to the database. This strategy requires the least back-end development and could be implemented for the existing data, but is likely to be labour-intensive and may be error-prone.
Calculate each metric on a per zine basis, in addition to the current per page calculations. This may provide a more representative view of the usersâ writing abilities.
Before embarking on a large study, data collection should be tested extensively to ensure it is compatible with data analysis strategies. This step should involve sending data from small pilot studies to researchers collaborating on the project or data analysis consultants, who then perform the planned analysis and provide feedback on data collection, data
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storage, and formatting. It is normal for this pilot phase to require multiple iterations and will ultimately save time and effort when analyzing and interpreting the final dataset.
Recommendations Based on User Trials
The research team was given access to use Pressto software, and had the opportunity to develop their own zines. Based on these trials, we further provide the following recommendations.
Align Presstoâs functions to specific curriculum outcomes and/or learning standards, which may differ across jurisdictions. Each province posts its writing curriculums on their provincial websites.
It appears that âReading levelâ rewards users with a green bar when the text is simple. This makes sense from a journalism training standpoint. However, it is not likely to encourage students to write such that their text is scored as more advanced lexiles. Perhaps users or teachers could toggle whether Pressto rewards writing according to high or low lexiles.
Ensure media (e.g., curated images) is age-appropriate and is consistent with other decorum-related rules in schools such as dress codes. For example, there are currently many images of alcohol available in Pressto via Unsplash.
There is an opportunity to incorporate instructional strategies (i.e., pop-ups, textboxes, links to videos, etc.) to assist students in improving scores with their writing (e.g., positivity), beyond âtrust your judgementâ statements. Such context-dependent instructions may be helpful for student-users.
Provide more rationale on why the particular metrics are displayed and how they were selected. For example, why is a title length of 20 characters optimal? This information will be especially helpful to teachers.
The âPositivity levelâ feedback provided inconsistent results. Words such as âdisabledâ and âdisabilityâ lowered the positivity bar to orange. Terms such as âblindâ, âautistic,â and âdeafâ resulted in a yellow bar. It is important to note that these terms are not inherently lacking positivity. In each case, the recommendation provided to the user remained the same. It would be helpful to have the positivity feedback accurately connect to the words used and offer concrete alternatives or suggestions.
Incorporate feedback on grammar, punctuation, etc. (e.g., as offered by existing tools such as Grammarly).
Ensure that the educational skills bars update at the same time, so that the relationship between the userâs writing and the feedback is more clear.
Consider developing a mode to allow more advanced writers to include more content. The current format may be too short for more advanced students.
Consider developing a collaborative magazine mode in which students work together to develop different but related articles.
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Future Research Directions
Given that a new release of Pressto with significantly more features is planned for later in 2022, it would be premature to develop detailed research plans based on the current verison. Once Pressto is fully developed, a number of research questions could be addressed both to speak to Presstoâs effectiveness as well as contribute to the literature on writing development more broadly. Below, we outline four possible research themes that Pressto may wish to consider after the new version is complete.
(1) Investigate whether Pressto is fun
To assess whether Pressto is fun, users could be randomly selected for a brief pop-up survey. The survey would ask them to provide a quantitative rating of fun (e.g., out of five stars), as well as offer a free-text option to gather qualitative data. The pop-up survey could also ask users to rank Pressto compared to other tools for writing, and whether they initiated the writing session on their own or were asked to use Pressto by a teacher. These data could be stored in the database with user sessions and writing metrics (see Recommendations stemming from the review of current data sources section above) and analyzed to evaluate whether students find using Pressto fun. This research design is unlikely to lead to an academic publication, but may be useful in that it will generate data for Pressto that will be relevant for marketing and development.
(2) Describing teacher and student experience using Pressto
Another promising study would be to observe and articulate teacher and student experiences using the Pressto software. We would propose individual interviews and structured observations with teachers and students who are actively using Pressto software in their classrooms. Qualitative questions exploring how Pressto is being used can be analyzed thematically to describe current product performance and generate recommendations for further updates. Rich descriptions of how students interact with the software can also provide insights for learning opportunities, integration with curricular objectives, or further recommendations for user experiences. Specific exploration on themes of accessibility, critical thinking, social media safety, and value of instant AI feedback can be integrated into this research design.
(3) Investigate the impact of Pressto and its immediate feedback metrics on student writing development
The immediate feedback on reading level, positivity, and eventually objectivity offered by Pressto is generally not provided by software presently used by schools to help teach writing. One exception might be Grammarly, which has recently introduced new features to judge the writing tone (i.e., friendly tone, academic tone). Thus, a possible research question is whether providing immediate feedback on these metrics improves writing skills in students. In this experiment, a group of students would be assigned to use Pressto for writing at regular intervals. A control group of students would use a version of Pressto with the immediate feedback features disabled. A third group of students would continue to use current classroom technology to practice writing (e.g., Google Docs, Pages, Kurzweil). Presstoâs metrics could be calculated for the first and last session and compared across the three groups. In addition, teacher-researchers
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could analyze writing samples from the three groups and evaluate whether the groups differ in terms of writing improvement over time.
(4) Improving accessibility and classroom implementation of Pressto software
Action research (Kemmis et al., 2014) can be used to develop best practices for integrating Pressto into classroom instruction and practice, and specifically for improving accessibility features. Professional teachers can be given access to the software, and using multiple cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, practical recommendations can be developed to assist teachers in using Pressto in effective ways. Action research allows teachers to engage with the software, observe how it can be integrated into classroom practices, reflect on the results and outcomes, and plan for additional ways that the software can be used. The results from this research process can inform future features that can improve Pressto performance and useability, as well as provide directions, procedures, or lesson plans that integrate Pressto software into classrooms. Given action researchâs flexible design, it could be used to improve Presstoâs accessibility features for students with disabilities, to help link Pressto to curricular objectives, or to demonstrate how Pressto can be used to improve writing quality.
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