Using Lecture Notes In Essays

Content analysis of the notes consistently showed that students who used laptops had more verbatim transcription of the lecture material than those who wrote notes by hand.

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If the source of the advantage for longhand notes derives from the conceptual processes they evoke, perhaps instructing laptop users to draft summative rather than verbatim notes will boost performance.

Mueller and Oppenheimer explored this idea by warning laptop note takers against the tendency to transcribe information without thinking, and explicitly instructed them to think about the information and type notes in their own words.

It appears that students who use laptops can take notes in a fairly mindless, rote fashion, with little analysis or synthesis by the brain.

This kind of shallow transcription fails to promote a meaningful understanding or application of the information.

Beyond altering students’ cognitive processes and thereby reducing learning, laptops pose other threats in the classroom.

In the Mueller and Oppenheimer studies, all laptops were disconnected from the internet, thus eliminating any disruption from email, instant messaging, surfing, or other online distractions.

Because students can use these posted materials to access lecture content with a mere click, there is no need to organize, synthesize or summarize in their own words.

Indeed, students may take very minimal notes or not take notes at all, and may consequently forego the opportunity to engage in the mental work that supports learning.

Despite these instructions, students using laptops showed the same level of verbatim content and were no better in synthesizing material than students who received no such warning.

It is possible these direct instructions to improve the quality of laptop notes failed because it is so easy to rely on less demanding, mindless processes when typing.