A writing sample of 32 laptop students and 32 control students were blindly
evaluated by experienced teachers using the district’s writing rubric. Mean
performance scores for laptop and control students were analyzed via a one-
way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with the four dimension
scores serving as the dependent variables. The MANOVA yielded a significant
program effect (p ¼ 0.048), therefore, univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA)
was performed separately on each dimension. All four tests were highly sig-
nificant and indicative of higher performance by laptop than control students.
Effect sizes ranged from +0.61 to +0.78, suggesting strong and educationally
important effects.