[originaltext] It’s a fact: Most students can type faster than they can writ

It’s a fact: Most students can type faster than they can write. So it’s only logical that typing notes on a laptop would be better when listening to a fast-paced lecture or presentation than laboriously writing them on a yellow legal pad, right? Well,(23)it may be logical, but it turns out to be wrong. In a recent series of studies, psychologists Mueller and Oppenheimer compared the performance of students who were asked to write out their notes on paper or to type them on a laptop. The results were stunning: Consistently across all measures, those who wrote out their notes longhand outperformed those who typed them on their laptops. In all cases, students who used laptops took more notes, but their notes were essentially rote transcriptions of the lectures. The information seemed to go from the lecturer to the computer with the student serving as a go-between rather than a learner.(24)In contrast, the notes taken by those writing longhand showed stronger conceptual understanding. Even more surprising, when students were allowed to study their notes before a test a week later, those whose notes were in longhand scored higher across the board. Why is the difference?(25)Mueller and Oppenheimer attribute the results to the differences in the types of cognitive processing that are triggered by slow writing and rapid typing. Because writing by hand is slower, students can’t possibly write down everything they hear. So they take the time to carefully listen, digest, and summarize the material in real time during the lecture. They learn while they listen. Because typing is rapid, students focus on simply getting all the words on paper without actually thinking about what they are typing.
23. What is the purpose of the study?
24. What can we learn about the two types of note-taking?
25. What leads to the difference between the results of the two types of note-taking?