When writing by hand, the visual motor systems in the brain that support reading are more active, said Sophia Vinci-Boher, assistant professor of educational neuroscience at Vanderbilt University. Vinci Buher has also found that handwriting increases letter recognition more than typing.
In general, when note-taking modes match test modes, a student is likely to perform better than when the modes don’t, Vinci-Buhr said. For example, if test answers are required to be handwritten, a student who writes his or her notes by hand is likely to perform better on the test than if the same student wrote his or her answers.
This school year, Coupe learned that the vast majority of his students had never taken a written exam in college. When he brought out the blue books for the first exam of the 2024-25 school year, he had to give detailed instructions about blue book standards, such as where to write your name.
Coupe noticed an immediate difference in his test results.
Students who did not come to class often showed unpreparedness in their exam answers, and Coupe noticed more variation in these students’ answers. Students who were not prepared for the exam also had difficulty applying reasoning to their answers, an important skill for future policymakers to master, he said. Previously, these conflicts were hidden using technology and what students did not already know was obscured.
For now, Coupe will stick with Blue Book tests because they fit his pedagogical style.
Grades in the blue book
Alexandra Garrett, an assistant professor of history at St. Michael’s College, has never known anything different. She joins the faculty at St. Michael’s College during the 2022-2023 academic year, teaching only in-person classes. All three tests were taken in her course on Early American History in Blue Book.
Although Garrett sees a lot of misspellings on written tests, she does not take grammatical inconsistencies into account in a student’s final score. It expects students to provide comprehensive, content-oriented exam answers.
While some teachers may question reading handwriting, Garrett said she has only had to ask students to read their answers aloud, due to illegible handwriting, only twice in her career.
Administering Blue Book tests doesn’t seem to be very popular these days. According to Garrett, some of the more experienced professors at her university expressed surprise when she said she had given up on digital tests. But persistent plagiarism and unauthorized use of ChatGPT in student essays has deterred Garrett from digital exams, and she doesn’t see herself moving away from Blue Books any time soon.
“I’ve never written blue books for exams and have no incentive to change them,” Garrett said.