I could, but its not worth it to me to read through a few dozen academic papers right now and pick out useful ones. Ive never seen any studies carried out using scissor switches, but Im sure someone somewhere has done one. If so, it probably just compared scissor switches to rubber domes though, which isnt a particularly useful comparison for our purposes here. I have in the past seen papers with rubber domes compared to buckling springs, and rubber domes compared to (IIRC) some kind of Alps switch. Both of those had conclusions favorable to the mechanical switches. I dont have those citations at hand: I dont care enough about this subject to build a comprehensive research file about it, so this is just skim-and-move-on paper reading. (I also suspect you dont really care too much, and after this response Im through with this thread.)



Academic papers on keyboard ergonomics are particularly frustrating, because they almost always use bad experimental set-ups, dont control for many relevant variables, etc. For example, Ive seen at least 4-5 papers which, in comparing keyboard layouts, also used keyboards with completely different types of switches. One paper tested for optimal distance and tilt of keyboard halves but didnt include enough tilt angles to leave the wrists in a neutral position for each distance. Another paper tested the effects of key travel by comparing completely different types of switches. Another paper tested the effects of switch actuation force, again with switches which worked by completely different mechanisms.



Its very difficult to set up long-term large-population comparisons of key switches, keyboard layouts, etc., because (1) the populations under study and their remedies are usually self-selected and many other aspects of the workplaces also vary dramatically, (2) its impossible to blind a study of keyboard usage, (3) many such studies are funded/performed by keyboard makers themselves because not too many others have the motivation to carry out such studies, leading to obvious biases, (4) people tend to vary their behavior when confronted with pain and so probably dont work exactly the same way on different sorts of machines, but Ive never seen a study which even attempted to account for this. Many studies are of tiny population sizes, measure random short-term things like amounts of movement of some particular tendon during typing, make judgments based on surveys of user preferences, etc.



As a result, most of the data I have is anecdotal. I personally know about 5 people who started suffering RSI-type symptoms, switched to a mechanical keyboard (from a rubber dome), and had their symptoms improve. Im sure there are dozens of others similar on this site. This is obviously problematic data because it involves several confounding variables, is a self-selected population, and is wide open to placebo effects, etc. There might well also be people who switched from mechanical keyboards to rubber domes and found relief, but I havent heard from any.



Among people I know who have tried mechanical keyboards, I only know one who prefers typing on scissor switches, and I know dozens of people who passionately hate scissor switches (I think this is going too far; scissor switches are... okay). I also know several people who know about or own mechanical keyboards, but use Apple scissor switch keyboards because they value some combination of (a) silence in the office, (b) portability, or (c) aesthetics.