I tried for a few minutes to find the HN thread where somebody refuted the "handwriting is better than typing"
for fact recall claim.
OTOH, IIRC,
- EEG measures brain activation. It takes more of the brain to hand write than to type, and so it is unsurprising that there is more activation during a writing by hand activity than during a typing activity.
- Do brain connectivity or neural activation correspond to favorable outcomes?
- Synaptic pruning eliminates connectivity in the brain; and that is presumably advantageous.
- Hyperconnectivity may be regarded as a disadvantage in discussions of neurodiversity. Witness recall from a network with intentional hyperconnectivity; too distracted by spurious activations?
- That's a test of dumb recall, which is a test of trivia retention.
- Is rote memorization the pinnacle of learning? To foster creative thinking and critical thinking, is trivia recall optimization ideal?
- (Isn't it necessary to forget so much of what we've been taught in order to succeed.)
- Is spaced repetition as or more effective than hand writing at increasing recall compared to passively listening?
- With persons who have injury and/or disability that prevents them from handwriting, do they have adaptations that enable them to succeed despite "having to" type instead?
- We don't hand write software; though some schools teach coding with pen and paper (and that somewhat reduces cheating, which confounds variance in success and retention).
- We write tests for software; we can't efficiently automatedly test software for quality and correctness unless the code is typed.
- Does anything ever grade, confirm, reject, or validate handwritten notes?
- Are there studies of this that measure recall after typing, and then after handwriting, too?
Edit: A, measure, B, measure; AND: B, measure, A, measure