“Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of the Effect of Transcription Method on Student Learning”
by Matthew Hertogs | Xchanges 8.2
Discussion
Overall, typing notes was found to be more beneficial for students in this study due to three inherent advantages of the laptop: accessibility/legibility, transcription speed, and organization. In all of the word-intensive classes, the “format” score of the typed notes for both students was consistently higher, due to the advantage of legibility and accessibility using a laptop. One of the most significant and overlooked aspects of notetaking is the ability to review one’s notes, and it was apparent that typed notes were easier to access and to read, making them more beneficial for student learning. As for transcription speed, both students were able to type faster, which made it easier to keep up with the professor, record details, and focus on connecting the main ideas of the lecture with those details. In contrast, for the number-intensive class, the utilization of a laptop actually hindered the transcription speed of the student because it was more difficult to input numbers and formulae while typing; therefore, the scores in the “meaning” category were actually higher for the handwritten notes in Student 1’s Chemistry 142 class. Finally, the even spacing, bullet points, and indenting provided by word processing helped the students keep their notes more organized than they normally would be when handwriting.
Another interesting aspect of the data is that Student 2’s typed notes only scored higher than his written notes when averaged, but not individually — one of the handwritten notes scored higher than one of his typed notes. This does not necessarily refute the idea that typed notes are more beneficial for word-intensive classes. Since the method of transcription is not the only variable affecting the quality of the notes, the reason that one of Student 2’s typed notes scored lower could easily be attributed to a variety of other factors such as the material covered during that class, the mode of presentation, and/or the mood of the student. Therefore, the averaged scores for each transcription method should be compared, which reveals that typed notes are more beneficial for students in a word-intensive class.
The study identified three key findings worth highlighting for future research:
1. There are differences between typed notes and handwritten notes. Even if one has qualms with the means of assessing what qualifies as a beneficial notetaking strategy, the differences in format, organization, and meaning between the notes are quite apparent. This fact paves the way for future studies to explore which method is more beneficial for students.
2. The most beneficial method of transcription is not constant between different classes. Most evident in Student 1’s case, typed notetaking was found to be more beneficial for word-intensive lectures, but not necessarily for number-intensive classes. Different classes require different notetaking methods and/or skills, and this fact should serve as a call for future researchers to analyze how notetaking and learning differs between various classes within the university.
3. Notetaking distractions are quite universal, regardless of transcription method. For both Student 1 and Student 2, doodling was definitely a distraction during their class lectures. Even though it is unclear whether doodling or Facebook is more distracting — Student 1 and Student 2 gave contradictory answers on the issue — it is at least worth noting that distractions happen with both methods of transcription. Therefore, instructors who forbid laptops in their classroom because of their “distracting nature” may want to reconsider their policies, especially if further studies confirm that typing notes is more beneficial for students in their particular class.
Due to a small sample size, my findings may not definitively prove that typing trumps handwriting notes, but they do reveal that there is a way to quantitatively evaluate the differences between typed and handwritten notes and that there are differences worth studying. As technology advances and becomes an increasingly integral part of education, it is crucial for researchers to continuously study how these technological advances impact students’ notetaking.