Swaziland E.S.L. Educators’ and Students’ Perceptions of the Effect of Text Messaging on Students’ Writing

Abstract

The present study investigated the perceptions of high school students and high school teachers held on the influence of text messaging on diverse aspects of students’ formal writing. The study employed the survey design where quantitative data was sourced through self-administered questionnaires on a purposively determined sample of forty high school students and forty high school teachers. Qualitative data was elicited from follow up interviews conducted with twenty students and twenty teachers for the two groups in the questionnaire sample to corroborate quantitative data. From the study’s findings, it emerged that the effects of text messaging on students’ writing is relative to particular aspects of students’ writing. Overall, the study established that high school students’ and teachers generally perceived no causal relationship between text messaging and most aspects of students’ formal writing. The study, therefore, recommended a more tolerant attitude to, and acceptance of, text messaging within its proscribed domain.