Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand

What are the key concepts in the following document: Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand?

• Encoding hypothesis

• External storage hypothesis

• Generative vs. verbatim note-taking

Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand — what was the research question?

• Does taking notes on a laptop vs. by hand affect learning?

What did they do in the following document: Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand?

• Experimental studies

• Students watched lectures and took notes:

  • laptop vs. longhand

• Tested on:

  • factual questions

  • conceptual questions

What did they find in Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand

• Laptop users performed worse on conceptual questions

• They tended to transcribe verbatim

• Longhand note-takers processed information more deeply

Why should we care about what they found in Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) – Laptop vs. Longhand

• How you take notes affects understanding, not just memory

• More notes ≠ better learning

What is the encoding hypothesis?

 Learning occurs through processing information while taking notes

What is external storage?

Notes help because you can review them later

Why are laptops worse for learning?

They encourage verbatim transcription

 What type of questions did laptop users struggle with?

Conceptual questions

 What type of note-taking is best?

Generative (summarizing, paraphrasing)