Legal Commentary

After banning laptops from the classroom last semester, I surveyed my students about the ban. I got about 65 responses out of approximately 200 students (not a great yield, but still). The questions and results, as well as my thoughts, after the jump:

My apologies for the formatting; I could not get them to line up.

1) What effect has the laptop ban had on your concentration in class?

Strongly positive: 33 Slightly positive: 17 Neutral: 13 Slightly Negative: 1 Strongly Negative: 0

2. What effect has the laptop ban had on whether you have found the course material interesting?

Strongly positive: 17 Slightly positive: 11 Neutral: 29 Slightly Negative: 3 Strongly Negative: 0

3. What effect has the laptop ban had on your ability to learn the material?

Strongly positive: 24 Slightly positive: 11 Neutral: 18 Slightly Negative: 6 Strongly Negative: 2

4. What effect has the laptop ban had on the usefulness of your notes for studying?

Strongly positive: 14 Slightly positive: 8 Neutral: 9 Slightly Negative: 22 Strongly Negative: 7

5. What effect has the laptop ban had on your overall enjoyment of the course?

Strongly positive: 21 Slightly positive: 13 Neutral: 16 Slightly Negative: 8 Strongly Negative: 1

So what do I make of these results? A few thoughts:

1) There were more neutral answers than I expected or, frankly, would have liked.

2) Students overwhelmingly recognize that they concentrate better and pay more attention when they are not allowed to use laptops. In other words, students recognize that the ban achieves one of its primary goals of increasing student attention and involvement. The limitation is that this does not tell us whether the reason for the increased concentration and attention is because the distraction of the internet/IM/e-mail has been removed or because, distractions aside, they are more involved when forced to listen and process the discussion rather than trying to transcribe it.

3) Students seem mostly positive or non-committal as to whether absence of laptops affected their enjoyment of the material or their ability to learn it. Which, of course, seems inconsistent with the overwhelming belief that they concentrated better. Better concentration does not equal great enjoyment or absorption? That seems counter-intuitive--if you pay more attention, don't you learn more (even if you find out you don't particularly like the material or the course)?

4) Students are split almost evenly positive/negative on the effect of the ban on note taking and the usefulness of class notes. My inference is that the negative on this is that students are accustomed to converting their typed class notes into an outline by cutting-and-pasting and reorganizing their class notes, rather than retyping those notes (one student specifically objected to having to retype). But I continue to believe that it is in the act of retyping, while putting all the divergent materials together in one whole, that real learning occurs and everything comes together.

I also asked some open-ended questions, including what students believe would be the best laptop policy. As with student evaluations generally, answers were all over the place. Only a few comments expressed a strong view that I was flat wrong to impose the ban; those who thought they should be allowed at least expressed an ability to see where I (and other banners) was coming from. Interestingly, several students suggested that laptops should be banned simply because enforcing a no-surfing/class-use only rule (which they supported) is impossible and the over-inclusive ban becomes the only way to halt inappropriate use of the internet. At least a couple of students commented that they were initially bothered by the ban, but came to appreciate the benefits of notetaking by hand.

On that last point, though, consider the following: About midway through the semester, I asked students in both of my 65-person Civ Pro classes how many were using laptops in their other classes in which use was permitted; all but 3-5 students in each class indicated they opened the computers back up when they were allowed. Which tells me that if I was expecting this to be an educational revelation--students would realize that laptop-free was the way to go and they would carry the lesson to the rest of law school--that was not happening. On the other hand, that finding is inconsistent with the anecdotal experiences of some prawfs who have banned laptops for the first month of class and given students the option after that and found that a substantial majority, having become accustomed to hand-notes, kept the computers closed.

So where am I on this? I definitely saw and felt the benefits in my classes and so did many of the students. The ban was neither wildly popular nor wildly unpopular; which means I am neither doing them a great favor nor flying in the face of overwhelming opinion. For now, students see this as just another "thing" you deal with in different prawf's classes--like lecture style, evaluation style, etc.

I will continue to exclude laptops this year (while still recording classes for them--just like at trial or deposition). And whether they take classes with him and the evaluations I receive in those classes, for now, seem unaffected by the ban.