The Impact of Using Doodling in The Educational Environment On the Degree of Learning of Educational Material

Introduction. This article is devoted to the study of doodling as a process of unconscious drawing by students during active thinking activity under experimental conditions. The relevance of the study is conditioned by the expressed public demand for the development and implementation of new methods and technologies in the modern educational process. The novelty of the study lies in the relatively low level of study of this phenomenon to date and the contradictory nature of the available practical data on its effectiveness. Thus, the presented work will help to supplement the still unstable scientific understanding of such a widespread phenomenon as “drawing on the margins”. Objective. To compare the degree of learning of educational material in students when using doodling and the classical method of memorization on the basis of historical text. Materials and Methods. Forty-eight psychology students at SFU, aged 17 to 22 years, 43 of them women and 5 men, were chosen as subjects. The subjects were divided into control and experimental groups, each of which was read a historical text. Then, 30‒40 minutes after the end of the experiment, each group completed the author’s questionnaire of 10 open-ended questions on the listened material. The results of each subject were evaluated by the degree of the completeness of answers and summarized for each group to then find the average value for each and compare. Results. The experimental group, which used doodling techniques, showed noticeably worse learning and reproduction results than the control group. Discussion. The results obtained are partially reflected in the work of other authors who were unable to reproduce the data, showing the advantages of doodling in memorizing information. It can be assumed that the results of the experiment were influenced by the relatively small size of the stimulus material and the morning time of the experiment: the subjects did not have time to tire, so they did not have a natural need for additional methods of attention retention. Perhaps, for this reason, a natural experiment could show better results on the use of doodling than a laboratory experiment. It is alsopossible that this method is only useful for people with certain characteristics. Further experimental studies with other conditions of doodling playback in different educational environments, subjects, and stimulus material are needed to clarify the phenomenon.