Note taking: pen or keyboard?

Thierry Olive is research director at the CNRS, at the University of Poitiers.

The pandemic that we have been experiencing for almost two years now has upset teaching practices. Distance courses have multiplied, many schoolchildren and students have had to work more alone, often without support from teachers or their families. Educational inequalities have thus been accentuated.

In this context, the students who succeed best are those who have a range of techniques and skills allowing them to mobilize all their knowledge to follow courses of often degraded quality or to read the documents on their own.

Note taking is one of those essential techniques for school learning: it is indeed impossible to memorize everything we hear from the first listen or to remember everything we read. Students must therefore, on the one hand, select the most useful and relevant information in their courses and, on the other hand, keep a permanent record of it. The notes are, in fact, an external memory that they can consult at any time to work and revise their lessons.

Organizational issues

Most students believe that taking notes contributes greatly to their success. Many scientific studies have shown that taking notes actually improves school results.

Of course, several techniques exist (from verbatim copying to notes organized in matrices, for example) and some are more effective than others. The most useful help to better understand the content of the courses. They also contribute to better memorization, and in the longer term, of new knowledge acquired.

Indeed, the quality of the student’s processing of the information given by the teachers depends directly on the note-taking technique: the more this promotes deep processing, that is to say of the meaning of the statements, the better are the memorization and comprehension of the lesson. Therefore, techniques that promote organization, prioritization, and reformulation of content generally lead to better results.

Unfortunately for students, taking notes, ie listening, understanding and noting simultaneously, leads to a very high mental load. Also, caught both in the urgency of taking notes and in the fear of forgetting part of the course, they often favor simple techniques that favor the quantity of notes rather than the organization and hierarchy of content.

Advancement of digital tools

Beyond note-taking techniques, which are rarely taught, do the writing tools used by the students contribute to the effectiveness of this exercise? Does it make any difference to take notes with a keyboard instead of a pen? A teacher in front of an amphitheater can only see the multitude of screens and tablets available to him.

A survey of 700 students at the University of Poitiers shows that 90% of respondents said they use paper and pen, and around 60% also use a computer. Tablets are used very little (less than 5%), less than smart phones (which are mainly used to photograph slide shows projected by teachers).

In a more recent survey conducted for her thesis among 240 students from various disciplines, one of my doctoral students, Marie Lebrisse, observes that nearly 90% of those questioned say they use a computer to take notes and as many say they also use a pen. and paper.

These surveys also show that the use of a computer depends on the disciplines: those which are essentially based on the transmission of the teacher’s discourse favor taking notes on the keyboard. It is indeed difficult to make diagrams, diagrams or write down equations with a keyboard and a mouse! Also, lessons in scientific or technical disciplines, for example, tend to lead to handwritten notes.

Finally, students say they prefer to take notes with a computer because they are so well presented and are therefore easier to read and revise, but also for the speed of typing on the keyboard. They are thus (re)assured not to forget important points of the course.

Effects still much debated

The effects of writing tools on note-taking are multiple and difficult to grasp: the slippery surface of tablets, the maneuverability of mice, the various options offered by applications used with computers or the size of screens are all factors which intervene in the performance and as many obstacles (or aids, according to the situations) for the raters. For example, a poor mastery of typing on the keyboard translates into a deteriorated memorization of the transcribed information.

For a decade, several studies have attempted to better understand computer note taking. In a study by Mueller and Oppenheimer published in 2014, college students were asked to take handwritten or keyboard notes from 30-minute video lectures. The authors tested the hypothesis that the speed of keyboard typing — which leads students toward more linear note-taking, aiming to write as many words as possible of the teacher’s speech, but processing it less from the point of view of its meaning — should lead to poorer recall.

They did not observe any difference depending on the tool in terms of the recall of specific information present in the video. On the other hand, they found a benefit of taking handwritten notes in terms of recalling information that reflects students’ understanding.

Other studies have also noted less organized and more linear notes with a keyboard, but this time, better memorization following note taking with a computer. It is therefore difficult to draw conclusions from the studies published to date, as some of them differ. However, a recent meta-analysis (the simultaneous analysis of the results of several studies) does not seem to show a negative effect of the use of a computer on the memorization of the noted information.

Uses to accompany

There are technologies other than the keyboard and the computer for taking notes: we can cite tablets with external keyboards, virtual or even with styluses, and digital pens, which record and digitize the written trace they produce. These two types of tools are therefore based on handwritten note taking and offer digital tool options (for example, handwriting recognition).

In her thesis, Marie Lebrisse studied note taking on a tablet using writing recognition software drawn with a stylus. His work reveals that taking notes on a tablet is closer to taking notes on paper. Studies that have analyzed eWriter tablets, which are used specifically for note taking and writing, have produced similar results.

The use of digital pens for taking notes is also an avenue to explore. These pens have the advantage of being able to record not only the handwriting, but also the teachings given by synchronizing them with the written notes. Joseph Boyle, of Temple University in Philadelphia, has conducted several studies on the use of these tools by students with learning difficulties. It clearly shows how the use of electronic pens can help these students.

To conclude, while several studies note the limits of digital note-taking tools, many studies also highlight their potential for academic success. But their use must be accompanied so that they bring benefits to the students. Without proper training and sustained support, they can end up being little more than gimmicks…