Is typewriting more resources-demanding than handwriting in undergraduate students?

Abstract

The present study investigated cognitive effort of handwriting and typing of undergraduate students. In Experiment 1, we used a secondary reaction time task to assess the cognitive effort required by undergraduates when carrying out handwriting and typing copying tasks. Students had longer reaction times, indicating greater cognitive effort, when typing than when handwriting. In experiments 2a and 2b, we investigated whether the additional cost of typing affected an ongoing activity. Participants performed a short-term memory task that required them to type or write by hand words to recall. As Experiment 1 suggested that typewriting was more effortful than handwriting, so it should leave fewer resources to devote to memorizing words, which would result in a better handwritten than typed recall. Overall, handwriting led to better recall than typing, particularly with the longest lists of words. This implies that, even in undergraduates, typing is still more effortful than handwriting and therefore has a negative impact on performance on an ongoing activity. The educational implications of the findings are discussed.