Paper or Tablet? A Retrospective Study of Preference and Performance

There is an ongoing debate over whether paper or electronic media are more pedagogically effective for student learning. Existing research has indicated that handwriting may be more effective for notetaking than the use of a computer, but contradictory results have also been found. Since 2020, all incoming students on the Physics programmes at the University of Edinburgh have been provided with iPad devices. Thus, availability of electronic devices has been removed as a confounding factor, and we are able to investigate more clearly students’ preferences and any effect on their performance. We have conducted a study on these issues using a combination of a questionnaire and focus groups: we find a mix of student preferences between paper and electronic media that show indications of time-dependence, but no statistically significant effect on student performance.