As technology moves forward and finds its way into the classroom, we see old styles and tactics make way for newer more electronic ways of learning. Among other things here at NC State, we have seen both the Hunt and D.H. Hill Libraries stocked with online resources, clickers in classrooms to mark attendance and participation, and the use of WebAssign for homework and reading. In almost all cases, this technology is generally helpful in the classroom. Except for the laptop; the laptop is the opposite.
Those who take their notes on a laptop generally hold the view that because it allows them to write down notes faster, that this would help them cover more of the information being given and that thusly, they would have better notes and do better in class. When talking to my roommate, Ricky Puyana, about this, he said that laptops are faster, neater and easier to reformat in case of a mistake.
On the surface, this argument makes a lot of sense, and as an education student I can see both the appeal of faster note taking as well as the benefits of writing down notes in a more comprehensive way. As a student at NC State, you would want to write down as much as you can; otherwise, you could miss a detail that could be important or arrange your notes in an unorganized way. However, look a little closer into the science behind note taking and you’ll find a different idea of what’s effective.
Psychological Science published a study that focused on how note taking on a computer versus by hand affects learning. Researchers found based off three different trials that, because students who write their notes by hand were limited in the amount of information they could record, they were forced to write that information down in a way that promotes “generative” learning. This is to say they had to prioritize the most important parts to write down.
In the opposite way, students who typed notes would copy as much information as possible verbatim from the professor in a process called “nongenerative” learning. After giving the students a quiz on the material later, they found that students who had handwritten their notes performed much better. Even after they had given everyone time to review their notes, the handwritten note takers still performed better.
They credited this advantage to the generative learning that handwritten notes promoted, because students had to process information as they received it rather than waiting until later to receive the same information again, just at their own pace.
In my personal experience writing notes, I have had to prioritize what to write down in almost every lesson. While oftentimes I miss small details, rarely do those ever matter enough for it to be a problem.
This study essentially points out that if a laptop user wants to effectively learn, they essentially have to receive the same information at least twice: one time to type it, and another to process it slower. In comparison, those who write their notes down process the information while recording it, and only have to review their notes if they wish to pursue a better understanding, and still perform better than laptop note takers given the same amount of review.
Another downside to laptops in the classroom is that they serve as a distraction for both the students using them and the students around them. According to a piece by cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham in the Washington Post citing a study from ScienceDirect, students who multitask between taking notes on a lecture and googling a few simple questions performed on average 10 percent worse on a 40-question exam afterward.
Furthermore, those who didn’t multitask but were close enough for the laptops to appear in their peripheral vision performed on average 20 percent worse on an exam than those with no multitasking in sight. I know there are several classes here at NC State that ban the use of laptops, and I can see the reasoning as to why.
One of my personal habits when taking notes is to doodle on a separate page in classes that focus on math. At first I wondered if this was the equivalent of distractions on laptops.
This question was addressed in a 2009 study by Jackie Andrade, a psychology professor at the University of Plymouth. The study found that doodling could help students with memory. She found that students doodling could remember 29 percent more information from an audio tape than those not doodling. This again shows the advantages of paper.
When I first started here, I tried taking some of my notes on a computer; however, I quickly found that there are several logistical problems with laptops that make them frustrating at times and impossible at others.
One of the biggest problems I had was my battery, which would not last the whole day. I know more recent devices have a longer battery life, but that usually either means a heavier weight or increased price. I neither wanted a heavy backpack to lug around campus, nor did I have the money to buy a new laptop when for all other purposes the one I already had was fine.
Another problem that did not concern my personal laptop was that somebody else’s computer had a fan that was making a lot of noise. Issues like this seem like small problems individually, but stick them all together and laptops become annoying.
There are very few advantages to using a laptop that can’t be replicated with pencil, paper and sometimes a smartphone.
At NC State we are all college students who need the most efficient medium for notes, so as to not waste time. While on the surface laptops seem like a fast way to get information, long term they are neither logistically nor scientifically as effective as handwritten notes.
