Taking Notes in the Digital Age: Evidence from Classroom Random Control Trials

Existing studies of how note-taking tools affect student learning typically find that students who choose to take notes on a computer perform worse on assessments than students who take notes on paper. To our knowledge, the literature has not disentangled whether this result is due to the notetaking process itself, or instead due to the characteristics of students who choose to use computers to take notes. In order to answer this question we employ a within-subject random control trial experiment and conclude that taking notes on computers does not have a statistically meaningful impact on student performance.

Keywords: Computers, Classrooms, Note-taking, Experiment, Economics

JEL Classification: A22, C90

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Artz, Benjamin and Johnson, Marianne and Robson, Denise and Taengnoi, Sarinda, Taking Notes in the Digital Age: Evidence from Classroom Random Control Trials (September 13, 2017). Journal of Economic Education, Forthcoming., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3036455 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3036455