REPORT: Which Method Of Taking Notes Enhance A Students Grades? Laptop Vs Pen and Paper

Over the past few months, I have been collecting data as part of an University assignment to determine which method of taking notes will enhance a University students grade. The title of this assignment is “Laptop Vs Pen And Paper – Which Note Taking Method Enhances Students Grades?”

As a student, my main method of taking notes is using a laptop. The main reason for this is that I don’t want to print out thousands of lecture notes and carry a whole heap of paper around with me when I can just carry a 1.1 kg laptop with me and have all my notes easily accessible. As doing an IT course, people still use the old fashion way of taking notes with pen and paper and I wanted to know why they still use that method, and to find out whether or not using a laptop could give a better overall grade for a student.

So in my research, I conducted a survey which I received 76 participants from all around the world, however, most of them are from Australia.

The survey was split into 3 section. The first section got basic information about the participant, the second section was only answered by those who use a laptop to take notes and the third section was only answered by those who use pen and paper.

23 participants use a laptop to take lecture notes while 53 use pen and paper to take lecture notes. With the results I collected, I measured each method of taking notes against the following criteria:

• Time – which form of note taking takes less time
• Cost – which form of note taking costs less
• Usability – which form of note taking is more usable (ease of use)
• Performance – which form of note taking will give better final results for students

In the results, their is no definite best way of taking lecture notes. Both methods had their pro’s and con’s.

The results concluded that a laptop did in fact save time taking lecture notes, however, it did cost more than taking notes with pen and paper. Usability results where mix between the two University note taking methods, and 87% of laptop users said that they think taking notes with a laptop has given them a higher grade.

Download The Results

For those who are interested in the results, I have compiled a 30 page report that shows the detailed results and conclusions on which note taking method will give a University student a better final grade.

You can download the PDF Report Here or you can download a .ZIP file that contains the report and the raw survey data that was collected.

If you have any questions about the report, please leave a comment below.

If you would like to tell me what your favourite note taking method is and why, also leave a comment below.