Handwritten Versus Digitally Supported Computer-Based Writing in Students with Specific Learning Difficulties: Writing Anxiety, Confidence, Frustration, and Perceived Ease

Writing is both a cognitive–linguistic activity and an emotional academic experience. For students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SLDs), written production may involve tension, anticipated failure, reduced confidence, and frustration, especially when handwriting demands compete with idea generation, spelling control, and text organization. These emotional responses are educationally important because they may influence persistence, written productivity, revision behavior, and academic participation. This study examined emotional responses to handwritten and digitally supported computer-based writing among 60 secondary education students, including 40 students with formally diagnosed SLD and 20 students without learning difficulties. Each participant completed two writing tasks, one handwritten and one digitally supported computer-based, in a counterbalanced order. The computer-based condition functioned as a digitally supported writing environment, with spell-checking and grammar-checking enabled. After each condition, students completed the Writing Emotional Response Scale (WERS), a 12-item study-specific instrument assessing writing anxiety, writing confidence, writing frustration, and perceived ease. The WERS was developed as a preliminary measure of immediate, task-specific emotional responses. Students with SLD reported lower anxiety, lower frustration, higher confidence, and higher perceived ease during digitally supported writing. The study contributes to educational psychology by linking writing modality, SLD, and emotional accessibility.