Wednesday 4 June 2014

Use a Pen to get the Point

So you can picture the scene, people gather in a room for a meeting, the laptops open up and as the agenda is worked through, the hum of the keyboard is heard as people take notes of the major points, tasks and agreements. We can often type faster than we can write, so using a laptop for note taking allows a more complete record of what was said and more detail to be recorded. Using the laptops in meeting would appear a great idea. Hence it is a familiar sight. 
 
It turns out that the story may be a little bit more complicated than that. Research by Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer from Princeton University and University of California, Los Angeles suggests that hand writing notes may be more effective than the laptop option.
 
They conducted a number of experiments where they had students take notes in a classroom setting and then do a test which checked for recall of factual detail, their conceptual understanding of the material, and their ability to synthesize and generalize the information. Half of the students took notes with a laptop and the other half wrote out the notes out by hand.

The students on the laptops took more notes and recorded more detail. However, those who wrote out their notes by hand had a stronger conceptual understanding and were more successful in applying and integrating the material than those wielding the laptops.

The improved understanding among the pen and paper users could be a function of ‘Levels of Processing Theory’. The idea is that the physical act of writing involves more cognitive effort and thinking about what to write is a more deliberate act. As we cannot write as fast as we can type, we need to think about the key points, be more discerning about what to write and more accurate in our summary of events. We need to understand what we are listening to. 

While a fast typist can record everything that they hear, they are not thinking about the content as much, they are merely producing a written record.

If you want to trap all the detail, crank open the laptop and work away. If you want to understand and recall the points made, use the pen and paper. Laptops are optional and don’t feel corporately under-dressed if you show up with just a refill pad and Biro at your next meeting.


On a separate point, this may have implications for the increased use of laptops and tablets in the lecture theatre or training room . While the volume of notes may increase, the level of understanding may not. If you do give a class or provide training where you are trying to get key conceptual points across, insist on the pen as the weapon of choice. 

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