EDL 7510

RESEARCH CRITIQUE
NOTE: A COPY OF THE ARTICLE MUST BE INCLUDED.
Name __Wafa Alnaieem________________________________

Article Title: The pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantage

of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.

1 pt.

Author(s): Pam A. Muller & Daniel M.Oppenheimer.

Name of Journal: Psychological Science.
Date of Publication: Apr23, 2014

Directions: For each item below, put your answer on this

critique form and mark the appropriate number in the article
at the place where you found the necessary information to
give you the answer.
NOTE:
If you cannot find an item in your article, write, Item not
found. DO NOT LEAVE AN ITEM BLANK!
1 pt. Type of research: Please indicate the specific type of research
as discussed in class.

ExperimentalNomotheticTrue
1 pt. Brief statement of problem: (NOTE: In addition to writing the
statement, please mark a #1 at the place in the article where you
found it.)

Thus,weconductedthreeexperimentstoinvestigatewhenwhethertakingnotes
on a laptop versus writing long hand affects academic performance, and to
explore the potential mechanism of verbatim overlap as a proxy for depth of
processing.

1 pt. Hypothesis(es) or Research Question(s): State the

hypothesis(es) or research question(s). (NOTE: Mark #2 at the place
in your article where you found the hypothesis(es) or research
question(s).)

Hypothesis
1

1 pt. What is the population? (Mark #3)

TheUniversitiesStudents.1 pt. What is the sample size? (Mark #4)

Study1,participantswere67students(33male,33female,unknown)fromthe
PrincetonUniversity.
Study2,participantswerestudents(finalN=151;35male)fromtheuniversityof
California,LosAngelesAndersonBehavioralLab.
Study3,participantswerestudents(finalN=109;27male)fromtheuniversityof
California,LosAngelesAndersonBehaviorallab.

1 pt. How was the sample selected? (Mark #4)

Randomly.Notmentionontheresearch,butbasedonourdiscussedontheclass,
thesampleberandomwhen:
1everyoneinthepopulationhasequalchanceinbeingincluding.
22oneselectiondoesnotaffecttheother.
3Noformorconditiontoparticipateontheresearch.Thatisapplyingtothe
sample.
Anystudentsontheuniversitycanbeinvolved.
1 pt. Do you feel the sample is representative of the population?
Explain.

Yes,becausethesamplewasintwodifferentuniversitiesthatrepresentthetarget
population.

1 pt. Dependent variable(s) (Mark #5) Please identify if the article doesnt.

Achievement(takingnoteperformance).

1 pt. Independent variable(s) (Mark #6) Please identify if the article doesnt.

Themethodoftakingnote(laptop,longhand)
1 pt. What type of data continuous or discrete? (Mark #7) If the article
doesnt specify, what type of data do you think they have?

Thearticledosenotspecify,butthefig(1,2,3)showHistogram=flattopandno
spacebetweenlonghandandlaptopcolumn,soitisdiscretedata.

1 pt. What measurement scale(s): nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio? (Mark

#8) If the article doesnt specify, what scale(s) do you think they have?

Thearticledoesnotspecify,butthefig(1,2,3)showHistogram=flattopandnospace
betweenlonghandandlaptopcolumn,soitisaratiomeasurementsale.
3

1 pt. What are the operational definitions? (Mark #9)

The Items not found.
1 pt. Are the procedures described in sufficient detail so that the
study could be repeated? Explain.
Yes, the procedures described in sufficient detail.
RO
O
control group. Study 1
R O X1 O Treatment 1. Study 2.
R O X1 O Treatment 2. Study 3
1 pt. State major results and conclusions. (Mark #10)

Instudy1,theresultThisstudyprovidesinitialexperimentalevidencethatlaptopsmay
academicperformanceevenwhenusedasintended.Participantsusinglaptopsaremore
likelytotakelengthiertranscriptionlikenoteswithgraterverbatimoverlapwiththe
lecture. Although taking more notes, thereby having more information, is beneficial,
mindlesstranscriptionseemstooffsetthebenefitoftheincreasedcontent,atleastwhen
thereisnoopportunityforreview.
In study 2, the result Theinterventiondidnotimprovememoryperformanceabove

that for the laptopnonintervention condition, but it was also not statistically
distinguishablefrommemoryinthelonghandcondition.However,theinterventionwas
completelyineffectiveatreducingverbatimcontent,andtheoverallrelationshipbetween
verbatim content and negative performance held. Thus, whereas the effect of the
intervention on performance is ambiguous, any potential impact is unrelated to the
mechanismsexploredinthisarticle.
In study 3, the result Whenparticipantswereunabletostudy,wedidnotseea
difference between laptop and longhand note taking. We believe this is due to the
difficultyoftestitemsafteraweeksdelayandasubsequentflooreffect;averagescores
wereaboutonethirdofthetotalpointsavailable.However,whenparticipantshadan
opportunity to study, longhand notes again led to superior performance. This is
suggestiveevidencethatlonghandnotesmayhavesuperiorexternalstorageaswellas
superior encoding functions, despite the fact that the quantity of notes was a strong
positivepredictorofperformance.However,itisalsopossiblethat,becauseofenhanced
encoding,reviewinglonghandnotessimplyremindedparticipantsoflectureinformation
moreeffectivelythanreviewinglaptopnotesdid.
Inthesethreestudies,wefoundthatstudentswhonotesonlaptopsperformedworseon
conceptualquestionsthanstudentswhotooknoteslonghand,Weshowthatwhereas
4

takingmorenotescanbebeneficial,laptopnotetakerstendencytotranscribelectures
verbatimratherthanprocessinginformationandreframingitintheirownwordsis
detrimentaltolearning.

1 pt What are the statistical procedures and significance levels of the results?
(Mark #11)

Meanzscored,standerdeviation,standererror,nsegma,predictedandreliability.
Significancelevels=.89
1 pt. Do the conclusions relate to the hypothesis(es) or research question?
Explain. (Mark #12)

Hypothesis.
Because the prior research has focus on two hypothesis this research became like
developingtothepriorresearches.
Prior research has focused on two ways in which note taking can affect learning :
encodingandexternalstorage(seeDivesta&Gray,1972;Kiewra,1989).Theencoding
hypothesissuggeststhattheprocessingthatoccursduringtheactofnotetakingimprove
learningandretention.Theexternalstoragehypothesistoutsthebenefitsoftheabilityto
reviewmaterial(evenfromnotestakenbysomeoneels).
1 pt. Are the generalizations confined to the population being researched?
(Mark #13)

Yes.
1 pt. Are limitations discussed? What are they? Can you think of any that
were omitted? (Mark #14)
Yes.
In study 1, Twoparticipantswereexcluded,1becausehehadseenthelectureserving

asthestimuluspriortoparticipation,and1becauseofadatarecordingerror.
In study 2, Two participants were removed because of data collection errors.
In study 3, OnehundredfortytwoparticipantscompletedSession1(presentation),but

only118returnedforSession2(testing).Ofthose118,8participantswereremovedfor
nothavingtakennotesorfailingtorespondtothetestquestions,and1wasremoved
becauseofarecordingerror.
1 pt. What do the authors suggest for future studies to resolve ambiguities
in the present study or to answer questions raised by the present study?
(Mark #15)
5

Itemnotfound.