Although note taking with your tablet, phone or laptop may look cooler, handwritten notes are most effective, according to a new study.
65 College students with laptops watched a series of TED talks and were later asked to recall information about the talks. The students were told to use their preferred note taking strategy.
Although the students who used laptops performed as well as those who used hand written notes when it came to remembering factual details, they performed significantly worse when it came to conceptual questions.
Both groups were quizzed a week later, once they had a chance to review their notes, but handwritten note takers again came out on top.
The laptop note takers generally recorded more words, and their notes were more verbatim (included more direct quotes of the lecture).
“It may be that longhand note takers engage in more processing than laptop note takers, thus selecting more important information to include in their notes, which enables them to study this content more efficiently,” according to the researchers.
photo credit: English106 via photopin cc
