An experimental study of online chatting and notetaking techniques on college students’ cognitive learning from a lecture

• Examine the effects of online chatting and notetaking on cognitive learning.
• Handwritten vs. computerized notetaking alone does not negatively affect learning.
• Students’ cognitive learning is declined with the absence of notetaking behavior.
• Engaging in online chatting during notetaking hampers students’ recall of lecture.
• Switching tasks via different means than the same device weakens notetaking quality.

This experimental study investigated the effects of college students’ online chatting behavior and notetaking techniques (handwritten vs. computer-mediated) on their cognitive learning. The results showed that regardless of notetaking technique, students who did not participate in off-learning online chatting during class, compared to those who did, demonstrated better recall of lecture content and higher quality of note. In terms of cognitive learning, students who used laptops to take notes were least negatively affected by online chatting during class than those who took handwritten notes or took no notes during the lecture. The findings suggest that task switching and interruption result in reduced effectiveness of learning and notetaking; moreover, switching from handwriting on notepads to typing chat messages on computer keyboards demonstrated a motor delay compared to students who used the same devices to multitask.