Dan Rockmore, a professor of computer
science at Dartmouth College, made his case for banning laptops in the
classroom in The New Yorker magazine.
A study done at Michigan State University suggested that Rockmore might have a
point.
The MSU study focused on the nonacademic Internet use of 500 students in an introductory
psychology class and used ACT scores to determine the intellectual ability of
each student. Past research indicated smarter students tend to be better at
filtering out distractions and score better on tests.
Instead, the study found the more all
students used the Internet for nonacademic purposes in class, the lower exam
scores. It also showed that students didn’t believe their Internet use in class
would have an effect on their classroom performance.
Another study found that students using
laptops for taking notes write more but retain less than those who write out
their notes with pen and paper. Researchers found that students who type notes
don’t always mentally process the information.
“They tend to try to write everything down
instead of trying to sort out what’s important and what’s not,” Pam Mueller, a
Princeton grad student, told The Toronto Star.
Mueller teamed with UCLA psychology professor Daniel Oppenheimer on the study
The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note
Taking.
