Staff Profiles

Lynsey has taught on a variety of modules for the Psychology undergraduate program. 

Modules taught

• Foundations of Developmental Psychology
• Foundations of Cognitive Psychology
• Foundations of Social Psychology
• Psychology and Contemporary Issues
• Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology
• Introduction to Psychological Research
• Advanced Statistics and Experimental Methods for Psychology
• Research Design Skills

Investigating the impact of spellcheck on writing for students with and without dyslexia.

Supervised by Prof. Vince Connelly, Prof. Anna Barnett and Dr.Olivia Afonso

It is typically assumed that spellcheck provides a positive boost to the writing process, particularly for those who struggle with spelling, such as individuals with dyslexia. However, questionnaire results suggest that the red underline, which automatically appears under misspelled words, actually interrupts writing and, for students with dyslexia, also disrupts their train of thought.  

Texts produced with and without spellcheck were compared for both groups of students. Spellcheck does not appear to impact text quality. However, it does increase corrections of spelling errors. Disruptions to text production could be caused by correction behaviour.

When faced with a spelling error, the most efficient correction behaviour is to complete the sentence being written before correcting that error. Typing behaviours revealed that, when faced with a spelling error without an underline, students with and without dyslexia corrected it immediately (less efficient correction behaviour) in only 10% of trials. However, when the error is underlined, this behaviour occurred in 45% of trials.

Spellcheck encouraged immediate error correction, which is disruptive to writing. Spellcheck has a larger effect on students with dyslexia than students without, which could explain the disruption to thought that students with dyslexia experience. In natural writing situations, because students with dyslexia have more corrections to make, the quantitative difference in error corrections could increase this disruption further. 

Research group membership

Lynsey is part of the writing research group within the psychology department.

/psychology/research/groups/developmental-psychology/writing-research-group/

Research grants and awards

Jan 2018, Santander continuation fee grant £1,197

Jan 2017, Santander student project grant £500. As a contribution towards costs involved in attending and presenting at the international conference ‘Writing Research Across Borders’, hosted by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Columbia).

Oct 2016, European Literacy Network, Training School Financial Support €540. Used to attend eye tracking training course hosted by Centre for Applied Neuroscience University of Cyprus (Cyprus)

March 2015, European Literacy Network, Trainee Grant €675. Used to attend a keystroke logging training course hosted by Antwerp University (Belgium)

Sept 2014 - June 2017, Nigel Groome and Oxford Brookes University Studentship

Journal articles

• O'Rourke L, Connelly V, Barnett, AL, Afonso O, 'Use of spellcheck in text production by college students with dyslexia'
  Journal of Writing Research 12 (1) (2020) pp.35-62
  ISSN: 2030-1006
  Abstract

  It is widely assumed that by identifying spelling errors and suggesting replacement words, spellcheck allows writers to revise spelling errors even if they do not have the necessary spelling knowledge. However, there have been no studies evaluating the efficacy of modern spellcheck tools for students with spelling difficulties, such as dyslexia. In fact, the very limited and dated research into use of spellcheck by writers with dyslexia indicated that, even when using spellcheck to revise spelling errors, this group left many misspellings in their texts. The current study is the first to investigate whether a modern spellcheck program allows college students with dyslexia to produce texts that are as free from misspellings as texts by their peers, and whether this affects the quality of the text in other ways.
  

  College students with dyslexia (n=18) and a control group of peers (n=18) wrote two short essays using Microsoft Word, one with spellcheck active and one without spellcheck active. Spelling accuracy and overall quality of the texts were measured. Without spellcheck, students with dyslexia made more misspellings than the control group, however, with spellcheck active students from both groups left almost zero misspelled words in their texts. Text quality was not affected. Results demonstrate that spellcheck helps college students with dyslexia to overcome the limitations that poor spelling knowledge imposes. Importantly, results indicate that spellcheck does not lead to improvements in text beyond spelling accuracy, or lead to poorer quality texts, indicating that it is suitable for use in exam conditions.

  Website 

Connelly, V.C, O'Rourke, L., & Sumner, E. (2019) How being a poor speller can seriously limit your talent as a writer. Learning Difficulties Australia, 51(1) 17-21  [available at: Learning Difficulties Australia - Special issue on writing and writing difficulties]

O’Rourke, L., Connelly, V., & Barnett, A. L. (2018). Understanding Writing Difficulties through a Model of the Cognitive Processes Involved in Writing. In Studies in writing, Writing Development in Struggling Writers. 11–28. Koninkijke, Brill. Doi:10.11.63/9789004346369_003

O’Rourke, L. & Connelly, V. (2014) Extended-writing practice appears to maintain handwriting automaticity in adults. Journal of the National Handwriting Association (13) 14-20

Conferences

O’Rourke, L. Connelly, V., Barnett, A. L., & Afonso, O. (2017) Investigating the impact of spellcheck on the writing behaviours of writers with and without dyslexia. Presented at the conference of the International Society for the Advancement of Writing Research, entitled: Writing Research Across Borders (WRAB), that was hosted by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Columbia) in February 2017.

O’Rourke, L. Connelly, V., Barnett, A. L., & Afonso, O. (2017) The impact of spellcheck on the writing behaviours of writers with and without dyslexia. Poster presented at the postgraduate symposium at Oxford Brookes University, in January 2017

O’Rourke, L., Connelly, V., & Barnett, A. L. (2016), Investigating the interruptions of spellcheck to writing for individuals with and without dyslexia, presented at European Association for Research in Learning and Instruction: special interest group: Writing. Hosted by Liverpool Hope University, in June 2016

O’Rourke, L., Connelly, V., & Barnett, A. L.  (2015) The use of spell check by students with and without dyslexia, and the impact on text quality and writing behaviours. Presented at the postgraduate symposium, at Oxford Brookes University in January 2015