Writing lecture notes by hand ‘creates deeper understanding’

Finally, an article that sets down what many of us already know from experience. You also get to cover less material at a better pace using an approach that gets students to take notes. At some point, the information has to pass through the brain. I suppose I am lucky as in Engineering we can use numerous example problems to get students to solve things on paper. Unfortunately, the need for high student "satisfaction" scores makes many of us now too risk-averse to try anything radical.

Were there any measures of actual memory etc. rather than just student perception of the experience? Objective measures would enhance the subjective reports from the students

I do not know the specifics of the abovementioned research; however, this simply does not work like that for me. I have been doing almost all my note-taking and reading digitally, both academically and professionally, and find it much more effective and efficient than any physical, manuel effort. I acknowledge that optimal means of learning may vary across profiles; however, I think that pen-and-paper methods will become mostly a thing of the past in a few decades at the latest. (like the today-ancient means predating paper).

I have not yet read the full research paper, but my first reaction is that mandating handwritten work might put students with specific learning differences at a disadvantage - not least because many find reading their own writing difficult. I can see the benefits of encouraging students to summarise in their own words, but it's important to make our teaching methods as accessible to all students as we can.