How Should Students Take Notes?
Keyboards and touchscreens dominate our daily lives, and lately, the debate over the effectiveness of handwriting versus typing for learning has gained some attention. Are there cognitive implications of these two distinct modes of note-taking? Let’s consider some research surrounding handwriting and typing and their impact on memory retention, comprehension, and overall learning outcomes. The Cognitive Benefits of Handwriting and Typing Handwriting engages different cognitive processes compared to typing. A study by Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014), found that students who took notes by hand retained information better than those who typed. The researchers proposed that physically writing information helps with encoding and understanding, improving long-term retention. Additionally, a study published in Psychological Science by Mangen et al. (2015) discovered that the tactile feedback associated with handwriting, such as the feeling of pen on paper, stimulates the brain in ways that typ