Business : Handouts or no handouts at your meetings?

There has been a long and ongoing argument about handouts in meetings. Should you give the attendees handouts before, during or after the meeting?

Some people argue that giving the handouts before helps people prepare. Others say that if they have the handouts during the meeting they will not pay attention to what is going on. And a third group of people say you should give handouts afterwards as a reminder, so that people actually engage during the meeting itself.

Strange then, that psychologists do not appear to have tested this - until now....!

According to a new study in the journal, Applied Cognitive Psychology, there is a difference in the impact of handouts during a talk, or after it. But the difference is not what you might expect....!

Different groups of individuals were given memory tests for lectures which were given either with handouts or without handouts. The people who did not receive handouts made many more notes than the people with handouts. This would favour the argument, it seems, that without handouts people do activities which lead to "deeper encoding" - in other words making the item more memorable.

However, when the participants were given a memory test one week later, the results were fascinating. The group of people who were provided with the handouts at the start of the lecture scored the same as people who only received the handouts later - in spite of making far fewer notes. In a second study, where memory was tested shortly after a lecture, the people who had the handouts actually performed better than people who made notes during the lecture.

It all suggests that handouts FIRST are much better psychologically. Handouts afterwards may seem to make more sense by implying greater attention and deeper encoding through more note-taking. However, this study confirms that taking FEWER notes achieves BETTER recall immediately afterwards and allows for the same recall after time has elapsed with less effort required.

Consequently, if you have ever wondered whether you should give handouts before or after a meeting or talk, this study provides evidence that before is best in terms of memory.

So, if you want people to remember what you are saying at your events you are obviously going to have to get used to them taking no notes and paying little attention to you as they read the handouts...! Those kind of people will remember MORE than the people who were paying attention and taking notes, this study shows.

Graham Jones
Internet Psychologist

Tel: 0118 336 9710
Fax: 0118 336 9711


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