Textese and spelling ability. Textese is a sound-based form of spelling to reduce the time of text messaging and the number of characters, using textisms such as 2day for today. Educators and parents have long been concerned about the effect of textese on spelling ability. A study of Australian children aged 1012 considered the effect of text entry method on the spelling subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT). Multipress is the original entry method in which three or four letters are assigned a key and the key must be pressed one to four times to produce each letter. Predictive is a single key-press per letter with suggested completion of the word. A total of 86 children took the WRAT and were classified according to text entry method usually used: multipress (27 students), predictive (45 students), or non-texter (12 students).

(a) What are the explanatory and response variables?

(b) Is this an observational study or an experiment? Explain why.

(c) The differences among the three texting methods were not statistically significant. What does no significant difference mean in describing the outcome of this study?