The Effects of Doodling on Student Recall

Overview

Objectives/Goals I have always doodled in class. I came across an article about a test involving adults, half of whom were told to doodle while listening to a telephone conversation. Later, when they were tested on their factual memory of the conversation, it was found that adults who doodled remembered 29% more than those who did not doodle. I decided to test the effects of doodling on elementary and middle school student recall. After some researching, my hypothesis was that students who doodled during a memory test would better recall information than students who did not doodle. Methods/Materials For this experiment, I tested eight classes of students in grades 4 - 7. Each class was tested twice. During one test students were told to doodle on provided paper while listening to a factual article about a type of insect. For a second test, while listening to a similar article about a different insect, they were instructed not to doodle. I randomized the test order. In each case, when the article was finished the students waited 20 seconds, then were tested on their memory of facts from the article. Results Approximately 136 students were tested. My results showed that subjects who did not doodle while listening to a test article recalled 11% more on average than those who did doodle. In fact, every class had significantly lower scores when they doodled. The findings showed that doodling has a significant adverse effect on student memory. Conclusions/Discussion Due to my findings, I recommend that students maintain eye contact with teachers during class lectures for optimal information retention. In this experiment, the information I gathered did not support my hypothesis, which was that those who doodled would have greater recall of information. In the future I might test the effects of doodling on long-term memory. This experiment only tested short-term memory.

Competition history

• CSEF 2012 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0711

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