Research says?

Posted by: Dr Ashley Tan on: March 24, 2021

• In: Uncategorized
• Leave a Comment

Am I happy that there is a study and meta research that reports that there is no statistically significant advantage of handwriting over typing notes?

Don’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: Replication Finds No Immediate Advantage to Handwriting Notes https://t.co/kkAQqJCtDS pic.twitter.com/QJGdmcNFU9

— Dr Ashley Tan (@ashley) March 23, 2021

Sort of. In a previous reflection, I explained that it is what students do with recorded notes that matters more than how they take them. Their preferences also matter.

I am also glad that there is ammunition for me to fire back to anyone that claims “research says…” and does not go deeper than that.

But here are a few more factors to consider about this debate.

First, a quiz was the measure of ability to recall. A quiz and recall — the most basic tool for the most fallible aspect of learning. Consider these: Learning is not just a measure of basic recall and our brains are designed more to forget than to remember.

Second, the students in the study were not allowed to review their notes before the quiz. On one hand, this is good experimental treatment design as it excludes one confounding variable. On the other, this is inauthentic practice — the point of good note-taking is to process them further.

Finally, this type of research has been repeated enough times for a meta study. It is an indication of technological determinism, i.e., we attribute disproportionate effects of the type of technology (writing vs typing instruments). In doing so, we foolishly discount methods of teaching and strategies for learning.

Tags: meta, research, study, typing, writing