The Future of Education

Our hands are tools with which we can do countless things from opening a door to painting a portrait. However, technology has generated a multilevel metamorphose not only of the educational field, but also of the usage of hands in learning, and remembering. Information and communications technology has modified and diversified teaching and learning bringing about a change in the ways people learn to recognize and recollect letters and words, read and write.

This study investigates how different writing methods affect memory retrieval. The Wechsler Memory Scale Third Edition (WMS-III) was used with experimental within-subjects research design to measure memory functions of 31 Lapland University students in 2016. Participants wrote down a dictated story with a pencil, computer keyboard, and a touch screen virtual keyboard. Consequently, the degree of recollection of each writing task was measured and analysed using SPSS analysing program.

Additionally, this paper deliberates the embodied cognition theory, as learning and memorizing is not simply information processing in vacuum. Experiences, actions and senses all play part in learning, and in writing, process with the harmonious co-operation of brain, mind and body. 

The results of this study indicate that writing modalities have statistically significant effect on recollection, handwriting receiving the highest scores. These results will be of interest due to the constant increase of digitalization of learning environments. Moreover, it will elicit valuable information that is beneficial when evaluating the impending changes in the Finnish curriculum, from which cursive handwriting is removed in autumn 2016.

Keywords: Writing, handwriting, typing, embodied cognition, memory retrieval, recollection, memorising