maximing note taking for college students

These lab experiments suggest that laptops improve storage, but undermine encoding. Taking notes can serve two learning functions: the physical storage of content (ideally, for later review) and the cognitive encoding of that content. Indeed, in this experiment, the notes of the laptop users more closely resembled transcripts than summaries of the lectures. Students writing by hand, by contrast, have to process and condense the material if their pens are to keep up with the lecture. Learning researchers hypothesize that, because students can type faster than they can write, a lecturer’s words flow straight from the students’ ears through their typing fingers, without stopping in the brain for substantive processing. Understanding of the lecture, measured by a standardized test, was substantially worse for those who had used laptops. In a series of laboratory experiments, researchers at Princeton and the University of California, Los Angeles, had students watch a lecture, randomly assigning them either laptops or pen and paper for their note-taking.

That means that any comparison we make of students at the end of the study is caused by the “treatment,” which in this case is laptop use. Randomization assures us that, on average, the students using electronics in a study are comparable at baseline to those who do not. Alternatively, they may be the most serious (or wealthiest) students who have invested in technology to support their learning. They may be more easily distracted or less interested in the course material. Students who use laptops in class are likely different from those who don’t.

Maximing note taking for college students