Title

Note-Taking Mode and Academic Performance in Two Law School Courses

Authors

Colleen P. Murphy, Roger Williams University School of Law
Christopher J. Ryan Jr., Roger Williams University School of Law
Yajni Warnapala, Roger Williams University

Document Type

Law Review Article

Publication Date

3-2019

Keywords

educational psychology and metacognition, knowledge barriers, bar passage

Abstract

The use of laptops in law school classrooms has become fairly commonplace, especially in the last decade. Yet, studies in other higher education settings have found an association between note-taking mode and academic performance; specifically, using a laptop to take notes in the classroom is associated with negative academic performance outcomes.

This study endeavors to assess the relationship between note-taking mode and academic performance in the law school setting. We compare the academic performance of handwriters to laptop users in two required, doctrinal courses as well as the effect of a randomly assigned treatment, exposing roughly half of the students in our analysis to a memorandum explaining the possible pitfalls of using a laptop to take class notes. We find that handwriting class notes has a strong positive association with academic performance in these two law school courses, supporting findings of the benefits of handwriting class notes in other academic settings.