Wiberg Revised IRP Idea and Research

[Holly Wiberg]

My IRP idea is to compare memory when learning by writing out vs. typing.  I will test 30 students.  They will be given a list of 20 terms and asked to write them out.  Half of the students will write them out by hand, and the other half will type them.  Their written list and the original list will then be taken away from them.  After 3 minutes, they will be retested.  They will be given a new sheet (in the same medium that they originally wrote the words down in) and will be asked to recall as many as possible.  Their rates of recall will then be calculated.

Possible Hypothesis:  Students who write out the terms by hand will have better recall than those who type the material.

1. Brewin, C. R., & Lennard, H. (1991, April). Effects of mode of writing on emotional narratives. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 12(2), 355-361.doi:10.1023/A:1024736828322
• This study tested college students on their emotional responses to recalling stressful experiences.  The students who transcribed their experiences by hand had stronger responses to their recollections than those who typed, suggesting that people are more engaged in their writing when writing longhand rather than typing.  This supports my hypothesis that people will learn the terms better when they write them by hand rather than type them. 
  
2. Bounds, G. (2010, October 5). How handwriting boosts the brain. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518.html
   
• A study at Indiana University had children write by hand while attached to a functional MRI machine.  The researchers concluded that people who write things by hand are more engaged in learning.  [[unrelated]] Virginia Berninger also commented on how compared to typing, writing requires people to form letters, adding a spatial component to their writing that helps them learn and aids their working memory.  This suggests that writing gives people more connections to the words, which should help them in recall.
  
3. Thomas, M. H., & Dieter, J. N. (1987, September). The positive effects of writing practice on integration of foreign words in memory. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), 249-253. Abstract retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022066303011255 
   
• Researchers tested participants to test the effectiveness of methods of learning a language.  They found that participants were most successful at learning the language when they copied the words because it “assists in the formation of memory codes for their written forms.”  This shows how writing words out increases the number of connections to the material, making it easier to find retrieval cues and recall the words.  As with Berninger’s comments, this shows how writing can aid memory and supports my hypothesis that people will demonstrate the highest recall rates when writing rather than typing.