Handwritten versus digital transcripts in academic lectures

The discussion about taking notes in lectures was particularly stimulated by an essay by Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014), wherein the authors described three experiments that revealed the advantages of longhand over laptop note-taking. The present paper set out to examine these results more closely. An online survey on the practices of students of educational sciences showed that the manner in which the transcripts are written and the reasons for note-taking are quite diverse. In a second study, which investigated the quality of both handwritten and computer-based transcripts, the differences in selected areas became apparent. Finally, the authors discuss the results and make recommendations for universities.