| This narrative-qualitative study investigated the perceived impact that electronic communication has on the written-communication skills of undergraduate students. Open-ended survey questions queried the experiences of undergraduate students who use electronic communication, as well as the perceptions of faculty who teach undergraduate students. Results suggest that faculty perceive that electronic communication negatively impacts the written-communication skills of undergraduate students as students become more accustomed to writing in a relaxed fashion, with disregard for proper spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. However, not all undergraduate students perceive that electronic communication impacts their written-communication skills. Of those students who do perceive that there is an impact, debate exists as to whether the impact is positive or negative. Additionally, results reveal that both undergraduate students and faculty perceive that the particular type of electronic communication that has the greatest impact on undergraduate students' written communication is short-message services. A dichotomy exists pertaining to perception of impact between the responses of the faculty as compared to the responses of the undergraduate students.;Keywords: computer-mediated communication, electronic communication, email, faculty members, perceptions, short-message services, standard written English, technology, text messaging, undergraduate students, written-communication skills... |
