Academic literature on the topic 'Doodling'

Doodling is often misinterpreted as a distraction to students in an academic setting– a hindrance to learning. However, recent research has shown that doodling may be beneficial to learning and memory retention. The current study expands upon previous research by investigating the impact of structured and unstructured doodling on auditory recall. This experiment was designed using a multi-method quantitative approach with an experiment that consisted of a control, structured doodling, and unstructured doodling group, and a questionnaire to assess students’ doodling experience. A group of 39 high school juniors were chosen for this study. In all three conditions, students listened to a history lecture in their normal classroom circumstances and took a quiz over the information afterward. Students doodled in both experimental conditions– they shaded a structured doodling sheet in the first condition and doodled in a blank, white A4 sheet in the second condition. The results indicated that those in the structured and unstructured doodling group performed significantly better than those in the control group, with structured doodling scoring the highest out of the three. The Post Doodling Questionnaire indicated that the majority of students experienced less daydreaming and increased recall while doodling; furthermore, the majority of students reported doodling naturalistically.

Previous research has documented a positive effect of doodling on individuals’ ability to recall information. However, previous research is limited to structured doodling tasks, such as shading in basic shapes. The present study extends the extant research, and increases the external validity of the previous findings, by considering the effects of multiple forms of doodling on recall. In this experimental study, ninety-three undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to one of 4 conditions (control, structured doodling, unstructured doodling, or note-taking). Participants listened to a fictional dialogue between 2 friends discussing a recent earthquake and then completed a fill-in the blank quiz to test their recall of the conversational information. The results indicated that participants in the unstructured doodling condition performed significantly worse than those in the structured doodling and note-taking condition.

Pre-COVID-19, doodling was identified as a measure of burnout in researchers attending a weekly, in-person health narratives research group manifesting team mindfulness. Under the group’s supportive conditions, variations in doodling served to measure change in participants reported depression and anxiety—internal states directly associated with burnout, adversely affecting healthcare researchers, their employment, and their research. COVID-19 demanded social distancing during the group’s 2020/21 academic meetings. Conducted online, the group’s participants who chose to doodle did so alone during the pandemic. Whether the sequestering of group participants during COVID-19 altered the ability of doodling to act as a measure of depression and anxiety was investigated. Participants considered that doodling during the group’s online meetings increased their enjoyment and attention level—some expressed that it helped them to relax. However, unlike face-to-face meetings during previous non-COVID-19 years, solitary doodling during online meetings was unable to reflect researchers’ depression or anxiety. The COVID-19 limitations that necessitated doodling alone maintained the benefits group members saw in doodling but hampered the ability of doodling to act as a measure of burnout, in contrast to previous in-person doodling. This result is seen to correspond to one aspect of the group’s change in team mindfulness resulting from COVID-19 constraints.

Previous studies have demonstrated that different types of doodling, a way of passing time to release boredom, have either positive or negative influences on one's ability to concentrate and memory. However, previous studies are limited to alphabetic languages, such as English, whereas character-based languages, such as Chinese, are underrepresented to a great extent. Therefore, the current study attempts to extend the extant research by considering the effects of two types of doodling on attention and recall during Chinese tasks and their difference between Chinese and English. In the present experiment, a total of 200 participants, including 100 individuals whose mother language is Chinese and English respectively, are randomly allocated to one of three conditions (structured doodling, unstructured doodling, and control). The concentration and recall performance of participants are measured by writing down the names and places during and after listening to a mundane telephone message. The results suggest that although structured doodling aids concentration in Chinese, the assistance is less than that in English.

Purpose The millennial students are disengaged in the current classrooms. Hence, there is a definite need to evaluate and compare the current learning tools. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of three learning tools – listening, structured doodling and note-taking – on recall ability of students in the classroom. The authors have specifically compared the effect of Andrade’s (2010) and Boggs et al.’s (2017) structured doodling condition (i.e. shading in shapes) vis-à-vis note-taking and listening. Design/methodology/approach An experimental research design was used for the study where three groups of around 40 participants each were created. The participants were Indian students (72 males and 48 females) who were undergraduates at NMIMS University, Navi Mumbai. Each group experienced all the three learning methods that are listening, note-taking and structured doodling. It was a 3×3 mixed model design. Listening, note-taking and structured doodling were compared on recall ability. This was assessed using a questionnaire extracted from Boggs et al.’s (2017) study and a self-designed evaluation sheet. Findings Across all three groups, structured doodling and note-taking had a higher impact on recall ability than the traditional method. However, the difference in the impact of note-taking and doodling on recall ability was not practically very large. The current finding assumes higher significance in the Indian education set up as Indian students are accustomed to note-taking as a learning tool yet structured doodling had a statistically analogous effect on recall ability compared to a systematically documented note-taking. Hence, a future direction could be to assess the impact of a blended learning tool that utilizes both note-taking and doodling or note-taking through doodling. Research limitations/implications First, the authors did not capture doodling habits of the students. Second, the study limits itself to a small sample size of 120 management graduates. The study can be extended to other disciplines like science and technology and also on how the higher engagement learning tools can be utilized in the normal environs of a course in a classroom. A future direction of the study can be to engage students in an activity as long as a regular lecture of about 60 min. A fusion of learning tools that effectively combines note-taking and doodling can be suggested to enhance recall ability and classroom engagement. Practical implications Higher order learning tools characteristically require technologically advanced infrastructure setups. In developing economies like India, most educational institutes may not have access to technologically advanced classrooms; hence, the implementation of higher engagement learning tools becomes a huge challenge. The endeavor in this study has been to study the impact and effectiveness of learning tools like doodling and note-taking which do not inherently call for access to advanced technology. Social implications In today’s age of globalization, emerging economies like India are seen to be taking center stage. Thus, ensuring that Indian education system is geared up to train students to compete globally and in the same vein, these students have access to higher engagement learning tools – the absolute need of the hour. Hence, the current research aims to bridge the gap between global education innovations and Indian classroom teaching method implementation. Originality/value The research has assessed the effectiveness of three different learning tools, namely – listening, note-taking and structured doodling – in Indian higher education setup. The current research is in harmony with the current literature and would function as an adaptation and augmentation of Andrade’s (2010) and Boggs et al. (2017) studies. A very scanty research body on understanding the impact of learning tools on recall ability exists in the Indian education setup. Current research will act as a bridge between global path breaking education research and implementation of in-class teaching methods in Indian higher education.