“Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of the Effect of Transcription Method on Student Learning”
by Matthew Hertogs | Xchanges 8.2
Methodology
This research project attempts to determine whether handwritten notes versus typed notes during class lectures are more beneficial for college students. To address this question, I employed a mixture of qualitative and quantitative procedures to analyze the notetaking processes and the actual notes of two undergraduate students at a large, state university.
I asked both students to take notes for two days with each method — typing and handwriting — and let me collect copies of their notes to analyze them for differences in style, content, organization, and format. Each student’s notes were quantitatively scored using a variation of the NOTES evaluation system1 created by Stahl, King, and Henk; the original NOTES model had to be adjusted so that certain criteria were neutral for both methods of notetaking. For example, the category “I use my pen for notetaking” would be removed because it favors handwriting over typing; however, the issue of legibility that this particular category addresses would still be considered in the qualitative analysis of the notetaking process. After collecting each individual’s notes and scoring them according to the adjusted NOTES evaluation system, the average score of the handwritten notes versus the typed notes was compared in an attempt to reveal which method is more beneficial for students. The three main categories within the NOTES system are format, organization, and meaning, and the results of the data are displayed in these three categories for less complicated comparisons. Finally, each student was interviewed at the end of the process to determine which notetaking method they most commonly used and for what reasons.
There are limitations within this particular method due to a limited amount of time and resources — most notably a small sample size and low number of trials. To ensure statistically significant results, I would need a larger sample size with randomly selected students, a control group of students that only take notes with one method to reveal if the notetaking style changes between daily lectures regardless of method, and a random selection for which method to utilize first. Furthermore, when assigning scores to the notes using the NOTES evaluation system, there would have to be multiple raters for each of the notes, instead of just my singular ratings, to ensure validity. Another limitation is that each student will be taking notes in a different class according to their normal class schedule, which may prove to be a confounding variable. However, the students all took notes in similarly structured classes that featured extensive notetaking devoid of numbers or formulas, except for one student who also took notes in a chemistry class for the purpose of comparison.2
Finally, the fact that the students are aware that they will be taking notes that will later be evaluated may alter their natural notetaking habits. To counteract this response bias, the student participants were not given any information about the specific evaluation process so that they did not consciously or subconsciously alter their notes to fit the specific positive characteristics that the evaluation took into account.
Despite all these limitations, the method utilized in this research study will hold merit because of its mixture of quantitative and qualitative analysis; if both types of research end up with the same results, the shared conclusion may contain more validity.
[1] See appendix for variation of NOTES evaluation system used in this study.
[2] Throughout the paper, I may refer to lectures without any numbers or formulas as “word intensive” lectures, and I may refer to lectures with numbers and formulas as “number intensive” lectures.