An Empirical Investigation - CiteSeerX

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Spelling Skills of Business Students:An Empirical InvestigationCharles L. Martin & Dorothy E. RansonThe Wichita State University

Spelling skills of 439 college business students were assessed using a conventionalspelling test comprised of 25 business-related words and 25 other commonly usedwords. As a group, business students scored higher than previously established highschool norms, although a substantial number of business students demonstrated spell-ing skills below the ninth grade level. Students with high college grade-point averages,who ranked high in their high school graduating class, who are female, and who cur-rently work only a few hours outside the home tended to be better spellers. Recommen-dations are offered to business educators concerned about their students’spellingskills.

t is not uncommon for dissatisfied consumers to complain to busi-Inesses and for businesses to respond to those complaints with per-sonalized letters (Martin & Smart, 1988). Yet many business studentslack the fundamental spelling skills needed to respond to routine busi-ness correspondence without aids such as dictionaries and spellingsoftware. For example, consider the impression one group of college-levelbusiness students would have made if they had pooled their lack ofspelling skills:

Dear Mrs. Smith,

This letter is to agnoledege your chorispondense of January 2. I am sorrythat you are dissadisfied and enconvienenced by our new Spell Plus wordprocessing software. I have no recoglection of similar problems. Our effortsare toteally directed to guarteen that our software meets rigid specifuca-tions for reliabity and speed. Unfortantly, our merchendise does not alwaysperform satisfacturally - as your testimoney suggests. My reckemanda-tion is for you to return the software to our office so the product qualitycommity might inspect it for defects. At that point we will be able tonogotiate an adjustment to your account. We appreciate your patronich.Sincerely,

Corespondance Admintrater

These misspelled words represent actual spelling efforts of collegebusiness students used in the present study. But, how widespread arethese spelling deficiencies? To what extent are business educators andpractitioners concerned? How can problem spellers be identified andassisted? These are the questions that sparked the present study.

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BACKGROUND

There is a growing concern that basic communication skills of collegestudents have deteriorated over the years (Association of AmericanColleges, 1985). The importance of communication skills in general, andwritten communication skills in particular, has been well documentedin the business literature (Hafer & Hoth, 1981; Hewing, 1980; Hil-debrandt, 1982; Hite, eat al., 1987; Inman, Olivas, & Golen, 1986; Lindgren,Berry, & Kehoe, 1982; Moore, Eckrich, & Carlson, 1986; Paller, 1983;Rader & Wunsch, 1980; Trawick & Nolan, 1984; Woodcock, 1979).

Although there is widespread agreement that written communicationskills are important in business, the literature in higher education -business included - has generally failed to address the importance ofspelling as a specific subset of writing skills. This literature void wasrecently noted in a review by ormrod (1986).

The poor spelling of undergraduates has been cited as a problem for morethan 50 years.... Yet surprisingly little research related to spelling abilityand spelling achievement has been conducted at the university level (p.160).

This literature void is discouraging given the findings of one recentGallup Organization study, i.e., &dquo;Americans are the worst spellers in theEnglish-speaking world&dquo; (Anonymous, 1989). One possible explanationfor the gap in the literature is the perception that the teaching of spellingskills at the college level is trivial and, therefore, inappropriate in highereducation. The perpetuation of such a philosophy, however, may carrywith it serious consequences, as Shaughnessy (1977) has observed:

Of all the encoding skills, spelling tends to be viewed by most teachers andstudents alike as the most arbitrary, the most resistant to instruction, andthe least related to intelligence.... Outside the academy, however, theresponse to misspelling is less obliging. Indeed, the ability to spell is viewedby many as one of the marks of the educated person, and the failure of acollege graduate to meet that minimal standard of advanced literacy iscause to question the quality of his education or even his intelligence (pp.161-162).

Clearly, business practitioners must possess fundamental spellingskills if they are to successfully communicate in writing. Intuitively, atleast four propositions might be advanced to support the importance ofspelling skills.

Proposition #1: Correct spelling aids readability. As the hypotheti-cal letter in the opening paragraph illustrates, poor spelling forces thereader to decipher words rather than read them. Consequently, the



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audience is slowed and communication impaired as the reader’s atten-tion is diverted from the message’s content to the message’s mechanics.

The relationship between spelling and readability is recognized by onemajor household-products manufacturer surveyed by the authors. Notonly external communication is scrutinized for spelling correctness, butinternal communication must also be error free. For example, interofficememos are sometimes returned to the sender if they include numerousspelling errors.

Proposition #2: Misspelled words do little to enhance the im-pressions most business people attempt to convey. That is, intui-tively the reader may use an assessment of the writer’s spelling skills tomake inferential judgments about the writer’s intelligence, competence,and respect for the reader. For example, author interviews with humanresource executives at Atlantic Richfield and Teleconnect, Inc. found thatboth use misspellings on resumes and cover letters as a &dquo;knock-out&dquo;factor for preliminary candidate evaluation. Similarly, in the consumer’smind, misspelled words may also be associated with more global percep-tions of the organization - including perceptions of careless operations,sloppy workmanship, lack of employee training and supervision, and so on.

Proposition #3: Poor spelling may directly and indirectly in-fluence message content. For example, &dquo;prepared correspondence&dquo;obviously differs in meaning from the possible alternative, &dquo;preparedcorrespondents.&dquo; As a second example, one’s business career mightpossibly be jeopardized should the business function of&dquo;personal selling&dquo;be mistaken for &dquo;personnel sailing.&dquo; Message content may be altered insubtle, less obvious ways as well. For example, a problem-speller may betempted to substitute less precise or otherwise inappropriate words forthose that would convey the meaning more accurately but are moredifficult to spell. Vague and confusing messages may result when suchtradeoffs between appropriateness and ease of spelling are made.

Proposition #4. The writer’s time may be used more productive-ly when spelling skills are strong. Contemplating &dquo;substitute&dquo; wordsis often time consuming, as is continuously referring to the dictionaryand operating spelling software.

OBJECTIVES

The above discussion leads to an inescapable conclusion: spellingskills are importantfor business students and practitioners. But, to whatextent are future practitioners able to spell? Are student spelling errorsfound on essay exams and written term projects a function of poor



380

spelling skills or of carelessness and time pressure? Have studentspelling skills deteriorated over time, as proponents of the &dquo;three r’s&dquo;

might argue? In short, are the spelling skills of today’s business studentsadequate? If not, what are the characteristics of poor spellers; how mightthey be identified and how might their spelling abilities be enhanced? Asystematic review of the literature in the fields of business, English, andeducation found little empirical data to answer these questions. Conse-quently, four research objectives were formulated for further investiga-tion. Specifically, the study sought to:

1. Measure the spelling skills of business students and assess theadequacy of these skills.

2. Investigate the relationship between spelling ability and selectedclassificational variables with the intent of developing profiles of stu-dents with inferior/superior spelling skills. Such profiles promise touncover possible explanations to account for the variation in studentspelling abilities.

3. Identify potentially feasible techniques and programs that businesseducators might adopt in their efforts to upgrade the spelling effective-ness skills of their students.

4. Provide a series of spelling benchmarks or norms against whichother business educators and researchers might: a) compare their students’spelling skills, and/or b) evaluate the effectiveness of programs designedto improve spelling skills.

METHODOLOGY

Data Instrument

In the absence of standardized spelling tests for business practitionersand students, a paper-and-pencil spelling test was constructed, as recom-mended by Allred (1984). F~fty test words were selected from Simmonsand Bixler’s (1935) standard high school spelling scale. Given that nocollege-level scales were publicly available, the high-school scale wasselected to provide some basis of comparison. The lengthy high schoolscale contains 2910 of the more difficulty to spell yet most frequently usedwords in the English language. Of the 50 test words, 25 were systemati-cally chosen to represent a &dquo;general&dquo; word list; i.e., those words anyonemight routinely encounter throughout the course of daily living. Another25 words were chosen to constitute a &dquo;business&dquo; lis+,; i.e., those words thatsomeone in business might routinely encounter.



381

The data collection instrument per se, was simply a single sheetcontaining 50 blank spaces for respondents to spell words as dictated,plus a few brief questions soliciting classificational data such as grade-point average, gender, age, occupation, college classification (i.e.,sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and relative rank in high schoolgraduating class.

Sample

Students from seven junior- and senior-level classes representing twouniversities were selected for the sample. One university is a largesouthwestern, land-grant institution. The second university is a medium-size, urban university in the Midwest. To motivate students to par-ticipate, bonus points for the course were promised to those students whoscored well on the spelling test. And, of course, anonymity of eachstudent’s individual score was assured. Consequently, students hadnothing to lose by participating, and virtually all students in the sevensections did so - resulting in a final sample size of 439.

Characteristics of the sample are summarized in Table 1. The majorityof respondents were business majors (72.7 percent), seniors (64.7 per-cent), and females (55.1 percent). Over 65 percent of the students workedoutside the home at least part-time (mean number of hours employed =18.5), and most were good students in high school, i.e., 60.6 percentgraduated in the top quarter of their high school class while 29.9 percentgraduated in the second quarter. Self-reported college grade-point averagesand student ages were slightly higher than one might expect for &dquo;typical&dquo;college students, with means of 2.86 and 23.1 respectively.

Data Collection

Students participated in the study during their regularly scheduledclass time during which the course instructor dictated each of the 50words (randomly ordered), used the word in a sentence, and thenrepeated the word. Students were instructed to print each of the 50 wordsin the space provided on the data-collection instrument. Students werealso asked to voluntarily provide additional data to be used for classifica-tional purposes, i.e., age, gender, grade-point average, major, etc.

Data AnalysisAfter collecting the data, all spelling tests were personally graded and

coded by the principal investigator. Descriptive statistics were thencomputed for each of the 50 test words and for the summated scores of



382

Table 1Characteristics of Business Students Sampled (n = 439)



383

the two word lists. These data were further subdivided by levels ofselected classificational variables. Next, routine inferential tests of dif-ferences and association were computed as appropriate for each variable’slevel of measurement and distribution properties. These included signtests, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, Pearson’s correlations, and chi-squaretests of independence. It should be noted that throughout the analysis,no systematic, significant differences in spelling abilities were foundbetween the two universities participating in the study.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Table 2 reports the proportion of students correctly spelling each testword from the &dquo;general&dquo; word list. For example, the first word in the list,&dquo;annually&dquo; was correctly spelled by 91.6 percent (i.e., .916) of the 439college students tested. Of these college students, 92.2 percent of theseniors spelled the word correctly, compared to only 90.8 percent of thecollege juniors. Only 84 percent of the 9th-grade high school studentsoriginally studied by Simmons and Bixler spelled &dquo;annually&dquo; correctly,compared to 85 percent of Simmons and Bixler’s 12th-grade students.As shown on the bottom row of Table 2, students correctly spelled an

average of 90.4 percent (22.6 of 25) of the words on the &dquo;general&dquo; wordlist (standard deviation = 10.8 percent). Scores were skewed, however,with 115 (26.2 percent) students correctly spelling all 25 words andanother 100 (22.8 percent) students only misspelling one word. Wordsmisspelled by 3 percent or fewer business students included: pair, spirit,nomination, formula, and interesting. In contrast, only 56.5 percentcorrectly spelled &dquo;pneumonia&dquo;; 65.4 percent, &dquo;endeavor&dquo;; 74.5 percent,&dquo;commissioner&dquo;; 83.6 percent, &dquo;recollection.&dquo; Creative alternatives forthese troublesome words included: namonu, phuemonia, pnahmonia,indever, endover, endevour, commetionair, comisioner, comissionor,reckolection, and recoglection.

Table 3 reports the proportion of students correctly spelling each testword from the &dquo;business&dquo; word list. As a group, the students scored loweron the &dquo;business&dquo; word list than on the &dquo;general&dquo; word list, althoughsummated scores were correlated as one might expect (r = 0.771, p =0.000). As shown in Table 3, an average of 84.7 percent (21.17 of 25) ofthe business test words were correctly spelled (standard deviation =12.83 percent).The business list score distribution was also skewed toward the high

end, with 41 (9.3 percent) students correctly spelling all 25 words andanother 77 (17.5 percent) students misspelling only one word. Words



384

Table 2

Proportion of Students Correctly SpellingTest Words from &dquo;General&dquo; Word List

most frequently spelled correctly included: agency (99.8 percent spelledcorrectly), traf~c (97.9 percent), profitable (97.9 percent), specification(97.7 percent), and produced (97.7 percent). In contrast, dif~cult-to-spellwords included: questionnaire (35.8 percent spelled correctly), satisfac-torily (56.0 percent), inconvenience (67.0 percent), and recommendation(70.2 percent). Alternative attempts to spell these latter words included:questioner, questionair, satisfactorially, satisfactally, satisfacturly, en-convienence, inconvienience, inconvience, reckemandation, reccomen-dation, and recomention.



385

Table 3

Proportion of Students Correctly SpellingTest Words from &dquo;Business&dquo; Word List

Contrast with High School Students

Knowing that the college students averaged 90.4 percent and 84.7percent on spelling tests of selected general and business vocabularies,per se, is of limited usefulness in that degree of spelling difficulty cannotbe objectively assessed from the word lists themselves. Consequently, itis useful to compare spelling scores against previously established normsor benchmarks. Although there are no college norms publicly available,Simmons and Bixler do provide useful high school norms; i.e., theproportion of high school students correctly spelling each word chosen



386

for the present study. Simmons and Bixler’s respondents included highschool students of the 1920s and 1930s, representing 250 communitiesin Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Indiana. Whereas a total of 8,000high school students participated in Simmons and Bixler’s seminalresearch of over 2900 words, only 200 9th-graders and 200 12th-graderswere tested for any given word. The two right columns of Tables 2 and3 indicate the proportion of 9th- and 12th-grade students correctlyspelling the test words from the general and business word lists. Collegebusiness students correctly spelled 49 of 50 words more frequently thandid 9th-graders - the exception being &dquo;endeavor&dquo; (business students,65.4 percent; 9th graders, 71 percent). Compared to 12th-grade students,the college students were more likely to misspell eleven words from thegeneral word list and eight words from the business word list. Alterna-tively stated, high school 12th-graders, as a group, were better spellerswith regard to the following nineteen words than were college businessstudents: blizzard, commissioner, endeavor, imaginary, recollection, pair,pneumonia, sewed, swallow, testimony, youngster, administrator, cor-respondence, dissatisfied, inconvenience, recommendation, patronage,satisfactorily, and specification.

Analysis of summated scores from Tables 2 and 3 reveals that busi-ness students, as a group, scored significantly higher (in a statisticalsense) than both 9th-graders and 12th-graders (based upon sign-testsand Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, p < 0.0001 in all instances). However,the magnitude of the differences is noteworthy. For example, on thegeneral word list, the college students scored an average of only 1.0percent higher than the composite average of 12th-grade students. Inaddition, an analysis of the distribution of the college students’ sum-mated spelling scores on the general word list reveals that 12.5 percentand 35.5 percent fall below the 9th- and 12th-grade norms, respectively(see Table 4). Slightly less discouraging percentages stem from theanalysis of score distributions on the business test list; 8.9 percent and25.1 percent of the college students scored below the 9th- and 12th-gradenorms, respectively. Apparently, exposure to these business-related testwords throughout the business curriculum has some positive impact onthe spelling ability of business students.

In summary, the overall contrast in spelling abilities between collegestudents and high school students is disappointing - at least disap-pointing to the research team. Had Simmons and Bixler extended theirinitial research to include college juniors and seniors of the 1920s and1930s, or even college-bound high school seniors, one can only speculateas to how poorly college business students of today would compare.



387

Table 4

Proportion of College Business Students Scoring Below High School Norms



388

Who is the Problem-Speller?Tables 4 through 7 extend the aforementioned analyses of college

business students by providing a breakdown of proportions, frequencies,and other descriptive statistics for the following variables: classification(juniors vs. seniors), gender, total hours of weekly employment, type ofemployment, grade-point average, and rank in high school class.

Table 4 provides an enlightening glimpse of how the summatedspelling scores of college business students compare with high schoolcomposite norms. For example, several groups tend to have a dispropor-tionately high frequency of students with spelling skills below the 9th-and 12th-grade levels, i.e., male students, students currently employedtwenty or more hours per week, students with college grade-pointaverages below 2.50, and students who graduated below the top quarterin their high school graduating class. Tables 5, 6, and 7 specifically testand confirm the implied relationships between spelling ability and theseindependent variables - thereby alerting business educators as to whichgroups of students may require extraordinary attention to developspelling skills. The following sub-sections explore possible explanationsto account for these statistically significant relationships (note, however,that college classification, job classification, age, and size of high schoolgraduating class are not significantly related to spelling scores on eitherthe general or business word lists).

Male

The male tendency to score lower on the spelling test may be relatedto conditioning in the early grade levels. For example, males may beexposed to less pressure than females to excel in &dquo;academic&dquo; endeavors.Such a deemphasis may subsequently lead to less experience in reading,or to less exposure/interest in elective English and writing courses.

EmployedThe more hours per week a student is employed, the lower his or her

spelling score. Why? Possibly because &dquo;full time&dquo; students may havemore time available to read at their leisure and more time to carefullyprepare written assignments for class. Reading for leisure probablyexposes students to a wider vocabulary than if they read only &dquo;required&dquo;material. The availability of time to carefully prepare assignments maytranslate into greater attention being paid to correct spelling.



389

Table 5

Relationships between Spelling Scores on &dquo;General&dquo; Word Listand Independent Categorical Variables

Low College Grade-Point AverageA high grade-point average may indicate a student that not only

excelled at courses taken but also took advanced courses due to their

intelligence. Exposure to different academic areas exposes a student tomore and different words thus increasing his or her likelihood of remem-bering and recognizing words. Or, a student with a lower grade-pointaverage may have some type of learning disability that would hinderspelling skill. If a low grade-point average indicates a lack of interest inschool, the student with a lower grade point average may also not have



390

Table 6

Relationships between Spelling Scores on &dquo;Business&dquo; Word Listand Independent Categorical Variables

the desire or the interest in reading and learning new words or practicingthe spelling of words.

Lower Quarters of High School Graduating Class

Particularly interesting is the significant positive relationship be-tween spelling scores and rank in high school graduating class. Basedupon spelling scores on the general word list, for example, the thirdchi-square analysis in Table 5 indicates that only 39 (9.5 percent) collegestudents reported graduating in the bottom half of their high school class,yet 139 (33.8 percent) scored below the 12th-grade spelling norm. This



391

Table 7

Pearson Corelations between Summated

Spelling Scores and Independent Variables

would seem to suggest that skills other than spelling have enabled mostcollege-bound high school students to rise to the top half of their class orthat high school spelling standards have simply deteriorated since the1930s.

CONCLUSIONS

Written communication is extremely important in today’s businessenvironment and, increasingly, more business schools are interested inteaching communication skills. This research examined spelling, aspecific component of business communication believed to be importantby many education scholars (e.g., Ormrod, 1986; Shaughnessy, 1977). Toexplore this subject, a spelling test was developed to measure the spellingskill of college students. Norms were then established by which toevaluate student ability, and a characteristic profile of the problemspeller was developed.

Results indicated that many business students today are poor spellerscompared to high school students of prior generations. Consequently,spelling education probably should not cease post high school. Instruc-tors should consider strategies within their curriculum to further ad-vance the spelling ability of college students and decrease anydeficiencies that may be evident.



392

It is believed that college educators will find this study’s spellinginstrument useful when examining spelling deficiencies at their respec-tive institutions and in the implementation of appropriate strategies asindicated by individual testing results.

DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Considering the implications of past research that writing skills areextremely important in business, it seems obvious that analysis andimprovement of spelling skills could help improve business students’success throughout their careers. Yet, the teaching of spelling to college-age students is challenging due to the assumption that spelling skillsshould be established before entering college. Moreover, strategies usedin elementary or even high school are not always applicable to a moremature audience. Therefore, innovative and more appropriate methodsmust be utilized.

Need Identification

Because of the heterogeneity in skills found among college levelstudents, educators should not assume that all students lack fundamen-tal spelling skills. Therefore, the first challenge facing the universitybusiness educator is to identify students who lack the spelling skillsneeded to communicate effectively. One approach would be to firstidentify those classes whose student profile tends to correspond with theprofile of the &dquo;typical&dquo; problem speller, i.e., male students, students withlow college and/or high school grade-point averages, and studentsemployed for several hours per week. Additional attention to spellingmight then be included in these courses.

Another way to identify problem spellers is to administer the spellingtest (or subset of test words) used in the present study. Comparing thetest results against the norms reported in Tables 2 and 3 will then enablethe instructor to evaluate the spelling competency of an entire class, aswell as the spelling competency of individual students.

Once the need for improved spelling skills has been established, thebusiness educator may employ a number of specific strategies to helpstudents. Discussed below, these strategies include: 1) error identifica-tion, 2) writing labs, 3) incidental learning, 4) motivational tactics, 5)computer assisted spelling aids, 5) spelling publications, 6) proofreading,7) entertainment strategies, and 8) writing practice.



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Error Identification

&dquo;Creative&dquo; or alternative methods of spelling the test words in thestudy were compiled in an attempt to examine possible failures withinstudents’ spelling capabilities. A system could be used to classify theerrors made by various students and to further explain what problemsstudents encounter when faced with spelling words in a professionalenvironment. For example, spelling errors encountered in the presentstudy seem to fall into two categories. First, phonetic errors due to theuse of structural analogies may indicate a student’s attempt to spellwords in the same manner as words with which he or she is familiar. Toillustrate, when &dquo;recollection&dquo; was spelled &dquo;recoglection,&dquo; the studentmay have been knowingly or unknowingly associating the test word withthe more common word &dquo;recognition.&dquo;A second type of error that seems to be indicated could be categorized

as a spelling-meaning error. In particular, spelling &dquo;endeavor&dquo; as &dquo;en-devour,&dquo; &dquo;commissioner&dquo; as &dquo;commetionair,&dquo; &dquo;recommendation&dquo; as &dquo;reck-emendation,&dquo; and &dquo;questionnaire&dquo; as &dquo;questionair&dquo; may be due to whatis termed an error of derived form. In short, the words may have beenspelled as to their sound.

Another type of spelling-meaning error is known as aff1X(J,tion. Thiserror might occur when the student cannot determine when the doubleconsonants should be used. Spelling &dquo;commissioner&dquo; as &dquo;comissioner,&dquo;and &dquo;satisfactorily&dquo; as &dquo;satisfactorally&dquo; typify this type of error.

Instructors could utilize this information in the development of teach-ing and grading strategies. Spelling errors could be explained to studentsin terms of a classification system and then they could use this informa-tion for future reference. Using such an approach would enable instruc-tors to identify strengths and weaknesses of particular students andtherefore pinpoint specific problems the students are encountering.

Writing Labs

The test results suggest that for many students spelling skills eitherwere not learned in high school or have deteriorated in post high schoolyears. In either case, educators might consider developing a specializedwriting lab or clinic for students who need such assistance. To identifyproblem spellers for referral to the lab, simply administer the spellingtest described above and compare individual scores against previouslyestablished norms.



394

Incidental LearningProactive or incidental learning may also be an effective spelling skill

strategy. This approach involves encouraging students to read frequent-ly and suggesting that they note unfamiliar and/or difficult-to-spellwords encountered during course-related reading. Students should beinstructed to notice similar letter patterns or deviations within words -

ultimately applying that information to future written work.The lists of words collected through incidental learning could be

compiled into individual student card collections or personal dic-tionaries. The compilation of frequently misspelled words not only helpseach student to develop his or her own reference source for commonlymisspelled words, but it also provides a mechanism for subtly encourag-ing students to utilize other spelling reference materials such as wordbooks, dictionaries, and so on. According to one group of researchers,college students might be better suited to recognize misspelled wordsand then use some sort of reference source as opposed to reverting backto the teaching of elementary spelling principles (Hashimoto & Clark,1984). So, students should either be required to keep a dictionary withthem during class activities or dictionaries should be readily available.

Motivational Tactics

Despite the availability of personal dictionaries and other referencesources, getting students to remember and use learned spellings is adifficult task. Some sort of motivation is needed to encourage correct

spelling. As course grading is commonly used as a motivation for goodwork, one might be tempted to infer that lower grades on writtenassignments that incorporate spelling errors would tend to decrease sucherrors. Unfortunately however, this does not seem to be the case. Instead,the key to effectively motivating students seems to involve creating thedesire as well as the ability to spell (Hillerich, 1987).One possible strategy that might create this desire is to make written

assignments very important to the students. For example, superiorpapers written by students could be &dquo;published&dquo; or used as classroomexamples. This may cause students to treat each assignment as areflection of themselves as opposed to just another class project. Intesting this strategy, one of the authors observed a dramatic increase inoverall writing quality in general, and spelling accuracy in particular,when he promised students in one class that the best term papers wouldbe published in the course workbook.



395

One English instructor interviewed during the exploratory phase ofthe research stressed that students must believe there is a need forcorrect spelling in written work. This importance, the instructor stated,is reflected by the professor’s actions and, therefore, a professor mayconsider not accepting written work that is error-ridden. The spellingtest used in this research contained many words commonly used inbusiness communication. Students could be asked to examine business

plans or documents for the frequency of use of the words. Then discus-sions could be held to explore the implications to the business if thesewords had been misspelled in a report to customers, consumers, orstockholders. This exercise may substantiate the professor’s orientationto the production of error-free written work.

Computer Assisted Spelling Aids

The recognition of misspelled words is very important in the learningprocess (Hashimoto & Clark, 1984). Students must be able to recognizethat a word is misspelled before they can learn the correct spelling.Though many students seem to believe that computer word processingprograms &dquo;spell for the user,&dquo; many of these programs just highlight themisspelled word requiring the user to find the correct spelling.

Educators have used computers to improve written communicationskills for numerous years. These computer-assisted instructional programshave attempted to aid students in editing and improving writtenprojects. However, word processing programs generally fail to indicateincorrect spelling of homophones (e.g., &dquo;write&dquo; vs. &dquo;right&dquo;) which is aparticular type of spelling deficiency. But recent innovations such asWriter’s Workbench may even help with this problem. Writer’s Workbench,a software program created by Bell Laboratory, has been used in instruc-tion for business communications courses; and the program’s capacity topinpoint misspelled words, and even possible incorrect uses of words,has been found to have a positive effect on students’ written work(Sterkel, 1986).

Another technologically advanced spelling aid is the &dquo;Spellmaster,&dquo;developed by Franklin Computer Corporation. The Spellmaster providesimmediate feedback to help students correct misspelled words beforeincorrect spellings are internalized (Nelson, 1989).

Spelling Publications

Several self-help manuals and workbooks are available for studentslacking fundamental spelling skills. These manuals, such as those



396

referenced in the accompanying exhibit, incorporate spelling rules andalso contain numerous exercises that offer the practice and memoriza-tion important to improving spelling skill. Students lacking spellingability might be assigned exercises from these manuals. The self-pacednature of these manuals enables each student to learn at a rate withwhich he or she feels comfortable, and frees much of the businesseducator’s time that might otherwise be spent teaching spelling skills tostudents on an individual basis. The accompanying exhibit, that mightin itself be used as a tool to improve spelling, illustrates basic spellingrules emphasized in the spelling publications.

EXHIBIT:NINE RULES FOR BETTER SPELLING

The following is a short list of spelling &dquo;rules&dquo; or consistencies in theEnglish language. This is not a conclusive list but rather a reference toaid in diminishing some commonly made spelling errors.

1. Put &dquo;i&dquo; before &dquo;e&dquo; except after &dquo;c&dquo; or when sounding like &dquo;a&dquo; as in

neighbor and weigh.2. If a word that is only one syllable or accented on the last syllable

and ends in a single consonant preceded by a vowel, double the finalconsonant when adding an ending that begins with a vowel.

3. When adding a suffix that begins with a vowel, drop the final &dquo;e&dquo;in the word. This is true for most words, exceptions being words endingin &dquo;ce&dquo; or &dquo;ge&dquo; when the suffix begins with &dquo;a&dquo; or &dquo;o.&dquo;

4. If adding a suffix to a word that ends in &dquo;y&dquo; and the &dquo;y&dquo; is precededby a vowel, change the &dquo;y&dquo; to an &dquo;i&dquo; before adding the suffix.

5. When making a word plural, add &dquo;es&dquo; if a word ends in &dquo;ch,&dquo; &dquo;sh,&dquo;&dquo;ss,&dquo; &dquo;x,&dquo; &dquo;o,&dquo; &dquo;z&dquo;, or if changing the ending &dquo;y&dquo; to an &dquo;i.&dquo;

6. A prefix does not change the spelling of a word.7. Adding an ending that begins with a consonant does not change

the spelling of the word.8. Learn to correctly pronounce words as you learn to spell them.9. There are exceptions to all of the above rules. Consult a dictionary

for any word that you are not confident in spelling. If you have no ideahow to spell a word, look up a synonym and it’s likely the word you needwill be part of the synonym’s definition.

Sources: The Least You ShouldKnowAboutEnglish, Teresa F. Glazier, NewYork: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1986; Spelling Success, R. Kent Smith, NewYork: Holt Rinehart, and Winston, 1989; Grassroots: The Writer’s Workbook,Susan Fawcett and Alvin Sandberg, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983;How to Spell, John Irving, New York: International Paper Company, 1987.



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Proofreading

Proofreading is an important aspect of spelling success that shouldnot be disparaged. Many times spelling errors may occur because ofinadequate proofreading, and both students and business educators arewell aware of this. But students should be warned that proofreading forspelling errors is a more difficult and complex task than is reading forcontent. According to one educator:

The student who is reading for editing and/or proofreading errors inconsis-tencies is forced to shift his or her mind from possible wool-gathering, oftena common consequence when reading for content, to a conscious mind-setfor detecting and correcting a specific kind of error (the more a student isforced to concentrate on a given written task, the more likely his or hereditorial skills will be improved) (Brendel, 1986, p. 20).

Therefore, improved proofreading should come from a student’s ability tochange from a content-reading mode to an examination-type of readingmode. Students should be encouraged to read specifically for spellingerrors and, therefore, more than one proofreading would be required forall written work.

Instructors could enforce the &dquo;two-stage&dquo; proofreading by allowingstudents to turn in two drafts of a written assignment. One draft couldbe evaluated on content and creativity and another &dquo;final&dquo; draft could begraded on a structure, presentation-type basis. This method shouldpromote the importance of readable, error-free work while still not

demeaning the importance of content and creativity.Another interesting example of a strategy promoting proofreading

was conveyed to the researchers by a text author. The author rewardedhis students for any errors that were found in the finished text. Thestudents responded quite favorably to the bonus points that were awardedto those who discovered spelling errors, and the author used the infor-mation to correct future printings of the text.

Entertainment Strategies

The use of entertainment types of strategies such as games andpuzzles may also be an effective improvement strategy. For example, oneauthor recommends that college students play the popular games ofScrabble and Boggle to improve spelling skills (Dawson-Medina, 1989).

In particular, business-related crossword puzzles, word-find, andfill-in-the-blank puzzles give students practice in recognizing correctlyspelled words and their meanings. Business instructors could use thesemethods in introducingkey vocabulary, and the students could be rewarded



398

with bonus points or minor quiz grades for adequate response. Theseexercises can frequently be found with ancillary materials supplied bypublishers or may also appear in publications such as ’The MarketingEducator,&dquo; a publication of the American Marketing Association.

Writing, Writing, Writing

Encouraging students to simply write more often is an advisableapproach in that frequent writing assignments are apt to encouragestudents to improve their writing skills. Assignments including researchpapers, essay exams, and short quizzes, to name a few, allow studentsto practice and refine their skills and, in turn, increase their confidenceand pride in their written endeavors. Quite likely, students are thenmore motivated to spell correctly and to improve their overall writingeffectiveness.

Method Evaluation: Future Research

Little empirical research has been conducted to gauge the impact ofthe aforementioned strategies and tactics on spelling performance ofcollege students. Less is known about the relative effectiveness of thespelling strategies, e.g., whether requiring students to keep a personaldictionary is more effective than asking students to play Scrabble for atleast one hour per week. To widen the body of knowledge with regard tospelling skills at the college level, future research might attempt toassess the effectiveness of the various strategies discussed. Such re-search would most likely involve some sort of experimentation.Though speculative, it seems likely that future research will deter-

mine that the key to incorporating any of these aforementioned strategiesinto a curriculum is a balance of the encouragement of creative, inspiredwriting and error-free professional writing. Spelling programs shouldnot discourage writing but instead encourage effective writing. There-fore, strategies to improve writing should reward correct spelling asopposed to just penalizing students for spelling errors. With theseconsiderations in mind, the future of student spelling skills may be anoptimistic one.

REFERENCES

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Anonymous (1989, September 15). Poll calls Americans worst spellers amongspeakers of English. St. Louis Post Dispatch, 23A.

Association of American Colleges (1985). Integrity in the college curriculum: Areport to the academic community. Washington, DC: A.A.C.

Brendal, L. A. (1986). Teaching consistencies with inconsistencies. BusinessEducation Forum, 41(2), 20-21.

Dawson-Medina, L. Y. (1989, Spring). Beating your spelling woes. CampusU.S.A, 13+.

Grubgeld, E. (1986, February). Helping the problem speller without suppress-ing the writer. English Journal, 75, 58-61.

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Hashimoto, I. Y., & Clark, R. (1984). College spelling texts: The state of the art.The Writing Center Journal, 5(1), 1-13.

Hewing, P. H. (1980, May). Are courses in business communications meetingthe needs of employers? Journal of Business Education, 55, 345-347.

Hildebrandt, H. W. (1982, Winter). Executive appraisal of courses which bestprepare one for general management. The Journal of Business Communica-tion, 19,(1), 5-15.

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Hite, R. E., Bellizzi, J. A., & McKinley, J. W. (1987, Summer). Attitudes ofmarketing students with regard to communication skills. Journal ofMarketing Education, 9, 20-24.

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