When writing by hand, the brain’s visual motor systems that support reading are more active, said Sophia Vinci-Booher, an assistant professor of educational neuroscience at Vanderbilt University. Vinci-Booher also found that handwriting improves letter recognition more than typing.
In general, when the modes of note-taking and testing align, a student is more likely to perform better than when the modes don’t align, Vinci-Booher said. For example, if exam answers must be written by hand, a student who also writes their notes by hand will be more likely to pass the exam than if they type their answers.
This school year, Coupet learned that the overwhelming majority of his students had never taken a handwritten exam in middle school. When he took out the blue books for the first exam of the 2024-25 school year, he had to give detailed instructions on the blue book standards, such as where to write his name.
Coupet noticed an immediate difference in the test results.
Students who did not come to class often showed their lack of preparation in their exam responses, and Coupet noticed more variation in these students’ responses. Students who were unprepared for the exam also struggled to apply reason to their answers — an important skill for future policymakers to master, he said. Previously, these struggles were masked through the use of technology and what students actually did not know was obscured.
For now, Coupet will stick to blue book exams because it fits his teaching style.
Rating in the blue book
Alexandra Garrett, assistant professor of history at St Michael’s College, has never known anything else. She joined the St. Michael’s College faculty in the 2022-2023 school year and taught only in-person courses. The three exams in his course on early American history take place in a blue book.
Although Garrett sees many spelling errors on written exams, she does not account for grammatical inconsistencies in a student’s final grade. She expects students to provide in-depth, content-focused responses.
While some teachers might question reading handwriting, Garrett said she has only had to ask students to read their answers aloud, due to illegible handwriting, twice at during his career.
However, administering blue book exams does not seem to be as popular a choice these days. According to Garrett, some more senior professors at her university expressed surprise when she announced she had abandoned digital exams. But persistent plagiarism and unauthorized use of ChatGPT in student essays have dissuaded Garrett from taking the digital exams, and she doesn’t see herself moving away from the blue books anytime soon.
“I’ve never made blue books for exams and I have no reason to change them,” Garrett said.
