While many schools are converting all their teaching to tablets, several researchers are questioning the merits of such an approach. Indeed, new evidence reinforces the hypothesis that handwriting promotes learning more than keyboarding. According to a recent study, brain activity is significantly more elaborate in the regions of the brain involved in memory and the encoding of new information when writing by hand. Its authors therefore recommend that handwriting be maintained in education and that it not be evacuated in favor of all-keyboard writing.
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analyzed the electrical activity in the brains of around 40 students in their early twenties while they wrote a series of words either using a digital pen on a screen or by typing on a keyboard. The electrical activity of the brain was measured by the high-density electroencephalography method using a headset with 256 electrodes that the participants wore.
Analyzing these recordings allowed researchers from Audrey Van der Meer’s team to know which areas of the brain were activated, as well as to determine the connectivity between various neural networks while the participants carried out their task. The researchers were particularly interested in this connectivity, because “it has been shown to facilitate learning and memory”, they emphasize in their article published in Frontiers in Psychology.
They then observed that a larger portion of the brain was activated when participants wrote words with their pen rather than on the keyboard. And also that the activation of certain brain regions was synchronous, which means that they worked together. Handwriting therefore led to a much richer and more complex functional connectivity, and it manifested itself mainly in the parietal and central areas of the brain, recognized to be “associated with the mechanisms of attention and the cognitive processes involved in visual perception and language. Previous studies have also shown that connectivity in these two regions is crucial for remembering and encoding new information.
For Audrey Van der Meer, this increased connectivity that handwriting generates is “proof that it promotes learning more than typing”.
“Brain research shows that it is not just the simple motor activity of the fingers that facilitates learning, but rather the complex and precise coordinated movements of the hand [et des doigts] as she traces the shape of each letter with a pen. » It became clear that handling the pen leads to different neurological processes which create optimal conditions within the brain for learning and memorizing, the researchers say in their article.
“The fact that handwriting requires fine motor control of the fingers forces students to pay attention to what they are doing. As for the mechanical and repetitive movements of typing, they do not require very fine visual and motor commands or proprioceptive information (on the position of the different parts of the hand through the muscles, tendons, ligaments and the skin),” they point out.
In conclusion, the authors of the study strongly advise that children be trained to write by hand from an early age so that the neural connectivity networks are established that make the brain better prepared for learning. Although they insist that the practice of handwriting be maintained throughout the school curriculum, they recognize the importance of also using digital technologies, which they do not ban. Natalie Lavoie, from UQAR, agrees: “At school, you have to teach and work on both. Do not think that writing on the keyboard is innate in children. For a young child, it is particularly complicated to find the letters on the keyboard, because they are not placed in the alphabetical order with which they are familiar. »
Norwegian researchers advise opting for the method that is most appropriate to the context. For example, taking notes by hand rather than on the keyboard, because handling the pen would allow for better memorization of concepts. On the other hand, for writing a dissertation for example, typing would be entirely appropriate and would save time and transmit the document quickly.