Note-Taking and Technology

The growing prevalence of computers, tablets, and educational apps in academic settings has prompted many researchers to investigate the potential benefits and drawbacks of this technology. One of the ways that this technology can influence learning in the classroom is through note-taking. Note-taking in the classroom is intended to facilitate learning through deeper processing/encoding of information and providing external storage. The incorporation of technology in the classroom has offered students the ability to take notes beyond the use of traditional pen and paper (e.g., via laptop, tablet, etc.). This change in the classroom has led researchers to question both the benefits and drawbacks of note-taking with technology versus with traditional methods, such as pen and paper. This dissertation will investigate whether note-taking using a computer may impair learning relative to taking notes in a handwritten fashion across three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 asked students to take notes on 20 arithmetic facts. These facts were either presented in the same format across the study and assessment phases (Experiment 1) or in a different format (Experiment 2). Learning was measured at two points in time (i.e., an immediate and delayed post-test, one week later). The results of these Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that taking notes with pen and paper and typing both led to a comparable performance for factual information when controlling for two factors known to impact learning (i.e., word count and verbatim note-taking). Given these results, the goal of the prospective experiment (Experiment 3) is to contrast these findings using conceptual and factual questions after participants have taken notes on a series of Ted Talks about mathematical information. Furthermore, this experiment will require participants to complete a post-assessment questionnaire to evaluate the note-taking strategies that they used.