Duly noted: do we learn better through handwriting or typing?

For Millennials, Gen X-ers, and Boomers who got through school with ink-stained fingers and dog-eared notebooks, the emergence of the laptop computer as the central device in student life feels like a progressive (and semi-miraculous) advancement in education.

But does all that typing lead to better learning?

Different kinds of note-taking

A study published in the Association of Psychological Science found a surprising result when comparing students’ ability to comprehend and retain information presented in a lecture when typing notes on a laptop versus writing longhand. The longhand note-takers showed that they understood the information better and could recall more of it than their keyboard-equipped counterparts. And yet, longhand writers wrote about 70% fewer words while the keyboarders were able to transcribe lectures almost word-for-word. What’s going on here?

Let's start by defining what we mean by “note-taking.” Generally speaking, there are two methods.

1. The first note-taking method is called external storage. This is where the student records the material as accurately and completely as possible. If it's a lecture, then this method means capturing every word spoken to produce a comprehensive transcript.
2. The other method is called encoding, where only the most significant concepts are noted, alongside the student's own thoughts on their significance—with connections to other concepts and clues that will aid recall later. This method can include symbols like circles, arrows, diagrams, or anything else that's meaningful to the student.

External storage, the first method, requires a means of writing very quickly—at least as fast as the teacher is speaking. By contrast, encoding demands a highly flexible means of capturing material, so the student can create a set of notes that are meaningful to them.

Longhand note-takers understood the material better

Not surprisingly, the note-taking method students employ is strongly influenced by the tools they bring with them into the classroom, with students employing the external storage method when they have a laptop at hand, while students equipped with an electronic stylus and note-taking tablet (or pen & paper) intuitively apply the encoding method.

Remembering is different from learning

Other research has shown that groups of students taking notes on the same content using either a laptop or by writing longhand performed almost identically on the ability to recall facts—but the group writing longhand significantly outperformed on the ability to apply concepts. The near-perfect transcriptions produced by the laptop typists led to a weaker grasp of the meaning of what they were supposed to be learning, while the more flexible (if slower) methods of the longhand note-takers led to greater comprehension.

A 2017 study, “Only Three Fingers Write, but the Whole Brain Works,” shed further light on what might be going on when note-taking includes diagrams and doodles. Researchers studied brain scans of young adults typing and drawing with an electronic stylus in response to words from the board game Pictionary™. They found that when drawing, subjects' brains showed activity associated with optimal learning conditions. But their brains did not show that activity when typing. The link between this type of brain activity and learning isn't perfectly understood, but the researchers concluded that nevertheless, optimal learning should include handwritten notes and whatever visualizations are useful to an individual student.

The groups performed almost identically on the ability to recall facts—but the longhand writing group significantly outperformed on the ability to apply concepts

Conclusion: writing notes longhand is the better way to learn

Fortunately, we don’t need to go back to pen and paper to get all the benefits of longhand note-taking. An electronic device with a stylus that lets you write notes by hand offers every advantage of pen and paper—but with an unlimited supply of pages (and no ink stains). Devices that convert handwriting to text are extra-helpful, making your notes more easily readable and automatically searchable. Using a stylus to mark up digital documents with highlights, underlines, and marginalia—in ways that make sense for your individual learning style—can unlock capabilities that students past and present may have only dreamed of.

Students eager to try their hands at digital note-taking should prioritize devices that first and foremost do a good job of displaying documents clearly and capturing handwriting accurately. And serious learners should be wary of devices that boast of features that are undesirable in an educational context: access to email, ChatGPT, social media apps, and strings of notifications are unlikely to aid either recall or comprehension.

Devices that convert handwriting to text are extra-helpful, making your notes more easily readable and automatically searchable

Whether you ultimately decide to pick up a pen or an electronic stylus, feel confident that you’re taking up a weapon to slay the dragons of endless distraction and shallow thinking. ◼︎

Sources:

• The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking (researchgate.net)
• Only Three Fingers Write, but the Whole Brain Works: A High-Density EEG Study Showing Advantages of Drawing Over Typing for Learning - PMC (nih.gov)
• Frontiers | The Importance of Cursive Handwriting Over Typewriting for Learning in the Classroom: A High-Density EEG Study of 12-Year-Old Children and Young Adults (frontiersin.org)
  
• Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement (researchgate.net)