Schriftelijke aantekeningen maken tijdens colleges werkt beter dan slides fotograferen

Dat het tijdens het volgen van een hoorcollege verleidelijk is om te dagdromen is bekend. Een nieuwe studie in Journal of Educational Psychology laat zien dat het maken van schriftelijke aantekeningen ervoor kan zorgen dat studenten minder dagdromen dan wanneer ze met hun mobiel foto’s maken van de collegeslides. Het maken van aantekeningen door foto’s te maken van collegeslides bleek in deze studie een minder effectieve strategie dan schriftelijk aantekeningen maken. 

In two experiments (N = 200), we compared the effects of longhand note-taking, photographing lecture materials with a smartphone camera, and not taking any notes on video-recorded lecture learning. Experiment 1 revealed a longhand-superiority effect: Longhand note-takers outperformed photo-takers and control learners on a recall test, notwithstanding an equal opportunity to review their learning material right before being tested, and even when photo-takers and control participants reviewed an exact transcript of the lecture slides via their photos or printouts, whereas longhand note-takers accessed only a fraction of the content as captured in their handwritten notes. Photo-takers performed comparably to learners who had not taken any notes at all. Experiment 2 further showed that mind-wandering mediates the mnemonic benefits of longhand note-taking: Relative to learners who took photos or did not take any notes, longhand note-takers mind-wandered less and, in turn, demonstrated superior retention of the lecture content. Yet, across both experiments, learners were not cognizant of the advantages of longhand note-taking, but misjudged all three techniques to be equally effective. These findings point to key attentional differences between longhand note-taking and photo-taking that impact learning-knowledge that is easily and conveniently acquired in a snap may not be better remembered.