By Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel

There is an ongoing debate on whether students should take notes on their laptops (typed) or by putting pen to paper (handwritten). We have blogged about this topic in the past and presented papers that found a negative effect of typing notes, no difference between typed versus handwritten notes, or that the benefit of one note-taking medium over another depended on other factors (e.g., whether students had the opportunity to review their notes). Various meta-analyses papers – a meta-analysis looks at the combined effect of a finding by bundling previous studies on the topic and quantifying how big the effect and how strong the evidence is – that have looked at the effects of handwritten versus typed note-taking on student performance are inconclusive with either showing benefits of handwritten note-taking (1), no difference between note-taking mediums (2), or that the advantage of handwritten note-taking disappears if students review their notes before taking the test (3).

A new meta-analysis on the topic published less than a month ago (4) looked specifically at studies that investigated handwritten versus typed note-taking in college students that used meaningful lecture materials and research designs that allowed to establish cause-effect relationships (e.g., experiments). In addition to looking at the typed versus handwritten effect on performance, they analyzed the note-taking effects on the number of words and ideas recorded and also investigated three moderator variables:

• test delay: whether final performance was assessed within one hour of note-taking (immediate) or at periods longer than one hour (delayed),

• review: whether students had the option to review their notes before the final test,

• type of performance assessment: whether performance was assessed as a total achievement, factual achievement, or conceptual achievement.

Their analysis included the results of a total of 24 studies; accumulating a total of 3005 participants. Let’s break down what they found:

• There was a clear benefit on performance for handwritten notes compared to typed notes. The researchers calculated how the strength of the benefit would translate to grades in a hypothetical scenario and suggested that 9.5% of the students who take their notes by hand would achieve an A whereas only 6% of the students who type their notes would achieve an A (and the pattern would reverse for the lower D and F grades).

• Neither the test delay nor the type of performance assessment moderated the advantage of handwritten notes over typed notes. Thus, the benefits of handwritten note-taking over typed note-taking remained stable independent of when performance was measured or whether total achievement, factual knowledge, or conceptual knowledge was assessed.

• However, the opportunity to review the notes before taking the final assessment seems to further boost the advantage of handwritten note-taking on final performance.

• While it was the case that typed notes contained more words and ideas from the lectures than handwritten notes, this did not translate to better performance later on.

Why do handwritten notes seem to be better for encoding information than typed notes? There are two explanations for this:

1. Level of processing: Handwritten notes seem to recruit more elaborate and deeper processing than typed notes. This is because to generate handwritten notes, students tend to paraphrase more which makes the information more meaningful to them. For example, students may activate more prior knowledge to paraphrase lecture content when putting thought to paper whereas typing invites more verbatim transcription without further elaboration of the content – because you can type faster than you can write by hand.

2. Images: Handwritten notes contain more drawings and images than typed notes. Thus, producing notes by hand capitalizes on dual coding processes (i.e. enriching learning by combining visuals and words) which are conducive for memory retention and comprehension.

What to conclude from this research? University students perform better on subsequent assessments when taking notes by hand than by typing – and this benefit seems to be enhanced when students get the chance to review their notes. However, the presented research comes with important caveats: It applies to college students specifically and not to students in secondary or primary school. And, more importantly, the studies included in the research do not take students with disabilities into consideration. Thus, evidence of how note-taking approaches affect students with disabilities is not available. Handwritten note-taking may not be possible for some students and so we need more research into this topic in order to make inclusive recommendations for classroom practice.

The question of handwritten versus typed notes is still open for investigation with exciting new avenues to be explored and independent of the note-taking medium, it seems important to support students in generating high quality notes and help them to engage in paraphrasing, for example, by supplying them with graphical organizers or pre-questions in advance of the lecture to help students organize their thoughts and focus their attention.

(cover image by Judit Peter on Pexels)

References

(1) Allen, M., LeFebvre, L., LeFebvre, L., & Bourhis, J. (2020). Is the Pencil Mightier than the Keyboard? A Meta-Analysis Comparing the Method of Notetaking Outcomes. Southern Communication Journal, 85(3), 143–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2020.1764613

(2) Voyer, D., Ronis, S. T., & Byers, N. (2022). The effect of notetaking method on academic performance: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 68, 102025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2021.102025

(3) Lau, T. S. (2022). The effect of typewriting vs. handwriting lecture notes on learning: a systematic review and meta-analysis [unpublished dissertation]. The University of Louisville. https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd/3982/

(4) Flanigan, A. E., Wheeler, J., Colliot, T., Lu, J., & Kiewra, K. A. (2024). Typed Versus Handwritten Lecture Notes and College Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 36(3), 78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09914-w