Taking Notes Instead of Typing Research Pit Scholars Against Each Other
Neither mode comes close to real-life situations. Students were instructed to write by combining words without lifting the stylus from the screen. And they were only allowed to type with their right index finger.
Critics also doubt that higher brain activity is evidence of better learning. Increased brain activity can equally be interpreted as a sign that handwriting is slower and more taxing than typing. We don’t know.
I contacted Audrey van der Meer, one of the co-authors of the Norwegian study who heads the neuroscience lab at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. He pointed out that his critics encourage the use of keyboards in education, so they may not be biased. But he admitted that his study did not check whether the students had learned anything.
Van der Meer conducted a new study involving real learning with 140 teenagers. He told high school students to watch a taped speech. Half of them were randomly assigned to take notes by hand, using a digital pen and touch screen, and the other half typed their notes. After that, they all wrote the same tests set by the teachers at school.
So far, he has noticed a clear difference in note-taking methods. Those who take their notes write too many words, often writing down parts of the speech verbatim. They did not make drawings. Those who use a digital pen primarily write key words and short sentences and produce two drawings, on average.
According to van der Meer, students who use the keyboard write everything the teacher says “because they know how.” But, he said in an email, “information seems to be coming in by ear, and without any kind of processing, it’s getting out easily.” He added that when taking notes by hand, “it’s impossible to write everything down, so students have to process incoming information, summarize it, and connect it to the information they already have.” That helps “new knowledge stick better, which leads to better retention.”
Van der Meer said he could not share the test results with me as he was still analyzing them. He explained that there are “a lot of confounding variables” that make it difficult to tell whether those who use handwritten notes do better on the test.
Even scientists who support typing agree that handwriting is important. Previous research has shown that writing letters by hand, compared to writing them, helps young children learn their letters better. A 2015 study found that adults were better at remembering words in a memory game when they wrote them down by hand first instead of writing them. And a 2010 book chapter documented a positive correlation between writing words and being able to read them.
While there is overwhelming evidence that handwriting can help children learn their letters and new words, there is less evidence that handwriting helps us retain new information and ideas. That doesn’t mean the Norwegian neuroscientists are wrong. But we still need proof.
I would also add that not all learning is the same. Learning to write is different from learning Spanish vocabulary. There may be times when typing is the best way to learn something and other times when handwriting is more. Also, learning something involves more than typing or handwriting, and the method we use to take notes in the end may be of little importance compared to how we read our notes later.
Meanwhile, where did I put my notebook?
This story is about handwriting versus typing written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Reporta non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign upEvidence Points and so on Hechinger newsletters.
