Investigating Writing Processes with Keystroke Logging

Abstract

Already in the 1970s, researchers in linguistics and psychology became interested in understanding how written language production worked, why students’ texts ended up in a specific way, and whether writing instruction could be improved by an increased understanding of students’ actual activities during writing - what happens “behind the scenes”. They observed writing processes through video-recordings and think-aloud protocols, both of which required laborious manual analyses, but with the advent of affordable computers in the 1990s keystroke logging was developed. Keystroke logging records all keystrokes and mouse movements and provide them with a time stamp to allow playback and analyses. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the concept of keystroke logging, explain briefly how it works, and give an overview of currently available software. First, we provide a short historical background. We then move into the core idea and functionality of keystroke logging in general before turning to descriptions of specific pieces of software. We summarise similarities and differences, aiming to show that choice of software should be governed by the research question. Finally, we discuss research that uses keystroke logging as a research tool, and provide examples of research about keystroke logging as a pedagogical tool.