Comparing factual recall of tapped vs. handwritten text

• Main Author: Bradford J. Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-01-01
• Series: Acta Psychologica
• Subjects: M-learning; MALL; Smartphone writing; Cognitive psychology; Notetaking; Memory
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182030545X

As a result of the rushed transition to remote teaching because of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers have suddenly been forced to design mobile-assisted language learning (MALL; m-learning) activities, mostly for the first time in their careers. However, it is imperative that instructors realize that the challenge is greater than simply converting paper-based assignments into a digital format. There has been very little research done examining the cognitive effects of writing on a smartphone, compared to writing on paper. The current study therefore sought to examine how recollection of content differed depending on the medium used for notetaking. A population of 138 Japanese university students of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) were asked to transcribe a short text, either by paper or by smartphone, and then quizzed on the content immediately afterwards. Students who wrote the text by hand were found to have significantly greater recollection of the content compared to those who had ‘tapped’ on smartphones. These results follow precursor research which indicated that Japanese students compose significantly slower on their phones in English (Lee, 2020b), and wrote significantly less in writing tasks (Lee, 2019, 2020a) than handwriting counterparts.