Do you remember that at the very beginning of the semester, probably at the second or third class, when the professor prohibited the use of computers at class, he said that note-taking by hand was more efficient than note-taking on computer? I wonder if what the professor said is true, so I dig into the question, and I found one and only one research about this problem. I do this research not to fight for my right of taking notes with computers, but to find out which is the better way of studying in the future.
PS: Assume if students turn on their laptop on class, taking notes is the only thing they are doing.
The research was conducted by two people from Princeton University and University of California, Los Angeles. In the experiment, sixty-seven students were chosen, thirty male, thirty female, and one unknown (this is what is on the report. I do not know what does “unknown” represents). Five TED Talks were selected with average length of fifteen minutes. The content was interesting but not common knowledge, and the students did not know the information in the TED talks. Students were assigned to take notes with normal laptops and notebooks. After the video, the participants will be asked several questions related to the video. A score will be given based on the accuracy of the answer.
The result shows that students who took notes with laptops had slightly better performance on factual questions, while students who took notes with hand had significantly better performance on conceptual questions. Content vise, students who take notes with laptop has an obvious advantage.
The study could be biased. As I did not see what the questions were, bias could occur during the grading process. If the professor was really against technological use in class, he might manipulate the result. Also, because I failed to find more similar experiment, it is hard to do a meta-analysis to test the accuracy.
The conclusion we can get from the experiment is that although taking notes on computers can record more information, taking notes by hand gives students much better understanding of the information. This conclusion can either be correct or false positive. The result may occur because it is impossible for students to write down everything when taking notes by hand (it is much faster to type), they need to understand the material better so that they can choose the most essential information to write down.
Although failed to find the another experiment, finding out the mechanism for causing the result may be helpful in testing the accuracy of the theory as well. Cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork has a theory that harder learning process can make memorizing easier. This theory can provide a mechanism for why taking notes by hand can help students’ conceptual understanding of the information.
Overall, it seems that taking notes by hand is more helpful to students than taking notes by computer because it makes students understand the material in class better. To this point, I begin to wonder that which will be more efficient, totally focusing on class without taking notes or take some notes by hand. Taking notes will definitely get more information recorded, but will “not taking note” make students understand better? It is a pity that I did not find any experiment on this theory and I can not risk myself to do the experiment. Hopefully someday someone will try to find out the answer to the question.
Works Cited
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/04/22/0956797614524581.full
http://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/research.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret-don-t-take-notes-with-a-laptop/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/body/taking-notes-by-hand-could-improve-memory-wt/
This is a refreshing article to see. In a day where modern technology is taking over, I’m still a huge believer in taking notes by hand. The way this article was carried out is very good too, as they seem to hit many major points we discussed in class. They take note that only one study is being done so it is very hard to do a meta analysis. To get more examples take a look here at this article . It breaks down the study very nicely and has a live link to the exact study so you can taker a longer look at the if you desire. It also backs up your conclusion so can help on that end as well.
I like this topic because it is something that is debated often. I personally prefer to hand-write my notes because it helps me remember the information better, and it also makes me write down only the most important information rather than writing down everything the professor says. I can see why in the study students who took notes on their laptop scored higher on factual questions because they are able to have more information and therefore more likely to have the answer, but students who hand-wrote their notes scored higher on conceptual questions because they probably wrote down only the most important information.
Here is the link to an article about why taking handwritten notes is better than using a laptop: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/to-remember-a-lecture-better-take-notes-by-hand/361478/
I think you will find this article, it talks about the distractions of being laptop. How taken written notes makes us take information in a different way than how we process information via laptop taken notes.I know i remember things better when i take handwritten notes and read them.
Nice blog! I was just thinking about this yesterday. I think there are both advantages and disadvantages of taking note by laptop and by hands. Just like what you said, the study you mentioned in your blog is the only research. The result might not be reliable since there are still third variable exist such as chance and the concentration of each student. The most important thing about taking notes by laptop is that it is extremely hard to make sure that taking notes is the only thing students are doing, especially in a big lecture in the university. So I still support that taking notes by hand would be better. One problem I found about taking notes is that although students are focusing on taking notes, sometimes they don’t know what they have written after taking those notes. Sometimes it is also hard to take notes and listen to the professor at the same time.
Coincidentally, I did my evaluation for ENGL 015 on this topic. Taking notes by hand is beneficial, but using a notebook is even better. Unlike a tablet or a laptop, humans can utilize their spatial memory when studying their notes. A study in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior studied the relationship between spatial memory and substantive memory. The researchers concluded, “This test, therefore, supported the conclusion that recall of substantive information and recall of the location of the source of information within a page were directly related.” Thus, studying from a physical notebook is more beneficial.
I can relate to this problem. During one of my classes for the first exam, I took all my notes by hand. Before the second exam, I took notes on my computer because I was too lazy to walk them out. I scored about the same on both exams, so it’s hard to tell what the better method is for me, but it’s all personal preference. I think I third variable that could affect people taking notes on laptops is the fact that you can easily become distracted while using them, for example browsing the internet while you should be taking notes!
While I think the research you did was really well done, and you covered all the bases with possible questions surrounding the study, I think note-taking by hand would be more efficient. Especially in a class like SC 200, the conceptual part of the lecture tends to be more important and harder to grasp, while the factual stuff is pretty easy and can be looked up later. I’m not a very fast typer so I take all of my notes by hand, and this post has pretty much convinced me that’s the right way to go.
I really like this article because i have always had the same question. All my life i had been taking notes by hand and until i came to Penn State i didn’t even know taking notes on a laptop was a thing that was done. For a while in class i tried to take notes with my laptop. I didn’t like it and felt that i didn’t get as much out of my notes as i did when i hand wrote them. I agree with your conclusion.