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An Analysis of Notes Taken during and after a Lecture Presentation

2015; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

1527-7143

Jeremy M. Haynes, Nancy G. McCarley, Joshua L. Williams,

Library Science and Information Literacy

Students use note taking to retain information for later recall on a test as most of them consider it integral to their academic success (Dunkel & Davy, 1989). Many studies on note taking base their conceptual framework for information retention on the encoding and/or external storage functions that note taking provides (Di Vesta & Gray, 1972; Hartley & Davies, 1978; Howe, 1974; Knight & McKelvie, 1986). The encoding function of note taking involves the learner taking the information presented and actively engaging with the material by translating it into his or her own words (Barnett, Di Vesta, & Rogozinski, 1981; Di Vesta & Gray, 1972, 1973; Einstein, Morris, & Smith, 1985; Fisher & Harris, 1973). Prior studies suggest that working memory plays a key role in the encoding process but a reduced role in the external storage function of note taking, as it involves processing information for a short period of time (Bui & Myerson, 2014; Bui, Myerson, & Hale, 2013; Peverly et al., 2007). The external storage function of note taking involves using completed notes as review for later recall (Bui, Myerson, & Hale, 2013; Carter & van Matre, 1975; Dunkel, Mishra, & Berliner, 1989; Fisher & Harris, 1973; Hartley, 1983; Kiewra, 1985). Studies evaluating the quality of notes examined students' abilities to discern important and unimportant information from prose passages and lectures. Brown and Smiley (1977) found that students as young as 8 years of age possessed this ability to a certain degree. The ability to distinguish between important and unimportant information becomes sharper as students become older and progress through elementary, middle, and high school. College students possess this ability, in addition to showing a tendency towards higher recall of important information than unimportant information (Brown & Smiley, 1977; Johnson, 1970; Wade & Trathen, 1989). Broekkamp, van Hout-Woulters, Rijlaarsdam, and van den Berg (2002) studied the correspondence between what students and teachers distinguish as important in a history textbook. Although correspondence was low for determining unimportant information, they found relatively high correspondence between students and teachers in determining the most important information in the textbook. These studies focused on students' ability to discern important elements from prose passages. As the majority of higher education tends to be teacher-centric with most information transmitted via oral and visual lectures (Doyle, 2011; Palkovitz & Lore, 1980), it is worthwhile to investigate students' ability to record relevant information from lecture presentations. Huxham (2010) evaluated the quality of students' notes from different lecture aids and found that notes recorded from a PowerPoint (Microsoft, Inc.) produced the highest quality notes relative to instructor-written cues, discussions of lecture material, and interaction windows involving group problem solving. Further research into how students recall information from lectures shows that working memory plays a role in encoding important information. Bui, Myerson, and Hale (2013) examined how taking verbatim notes (a task requiring low working memory ability) and structured notes (a task requiring high working memory ability) affected immediate recall of an audio lecture. They found that participants who recorded verbatim notes recalled fewer important details than those who recorded structured notes. A follow-up study showed that when participants reviewed their notes, working memory played a reduced role in recalling important details for participants recording either verbatim or structured notes. Using a video lecture, Kiewra, Mayer, Christensen, Kim, and Risch (1991) found that participants recorded a relatively large amount of high importance information during the first of three lectures which repeatedly presented the same information. In determining the effects of repetition on recall, this did not translate into increased recall of that information; however, participants' notes revealed they did possess the ability to distinguish important from unimportant information from a video lecture presentation. …