Abstract
The role of decision-making and keystroking in the psychomotor activity of office typing tasks was assessed for 2nd-semester, 4th-semester, and terminal college students under three different work conditions: (1) prearranged, (2) unarranged without erasing errors, and (3) unarranged with erasing errors. All differences for main effects for speed and errors were significant (p < .01). When office tasks were done under wholly realistic conditions, planning and decision-making were one-half, keystroking was three-eighths, and erasing comprised one-eighth of the task. Mean completion time for one letter, one table, and one rough draft for 60 students was: prearranged without erasing, 8.94 min.; unarranged without erasing, 20.89 min.; and unarranged with erasing, 23.93 min. At low levels of skill, time consumed for keystroking was nearly as salient in contributing toward completion of product as time consumed for decision-making. As psychomotor skill increased, the perceptual skill of decision-making played an increasingly dominant role. The amount of time needed for decision-making took on increasing salience in producing office communications as difficulty of the task and amount of training were increased.
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