A Note-Restructuring Intervention Increases Students’ Exam Scores (original) (raw)
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It was hypothesized that students' learning would be enhanced by an intervention getting them to elaborate on and restructure the notes they had taken in lecture. Students in a research methods course were randomly assigned to weeks in which they would turn in a copy of their restructured lecture notes along with a very brief summary of the class. This intervention required students to spend quality time-on-task. Subsequently, results of exam questions from weeks in which students completed the intervention were compared to weeks they did not do so. The intervention improved student performance by a full class grade (11 percent, effect size d = 1.1) and it improved performance equally for students at the top, bottom, and middle of the class.
In an upper-division, college course with a lecture component and two laboratory sections, we experimentally evaluated a treatment package that included this contingency: "only if students attended lecture and submitted notes for each day's reading assignment could they use their notes during a later test," and instructions about the contingency. We examined whether the instructed contingency enhanced: (a) students completing notes on reading assignments before lecture and (b) their attending lecture. Although the instructed contingency improved these behaviors, improvement depended on the semester we conducted our experiment and the students' laboratory section. The instructed contingency was, however, most helpful where most needed: for the laboratory whose students had the lowest attendance rates at lecture. For these students the instructed contingency--a non-punitive, inexpensive intervention--enhanced preparation for and attendance at lecture across two experiments and appeared to support such behavior in subsequent offerings of the course.
The Impact of Guided Notes on Post-Secondary Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis
The International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2013
The common practice of using of guided notes in the post-secondary classroom is not fully appreciated or understood. In an effort to add to the existing research about this phenomenon, the current investigation expands on previously published research and one previously published metaanalysis that examined the impact of guided notes on post-secondary student achievement. Specifically, this study examines the different variables that moderate the effect of using guided notes in the classroom, the impact of guided notes relative to professor-provided notes or studentgenerated notes, and unlike previous studies, the present meta-analysis, includes both published and unpublished research and some previously unexamined variables. Results indicate that overall, guided notes can produce a moderate impact on student achievement. The study discusses the implications and limitations of this research.
Differential Effects of Full and Partial Notes on Learning Outcomes and Attendance
Teaching of Psychology, 2008
Although college instructors are increasingly providing students with online notes, research is equivocal on how such notes affect student outcomes. This study examined partial versus full notes in introductory psychology classes while controlling for initial levels of student knowledge and academic ability. Results suggested that students receiving partial notes performed better on examinations later in the semester and on conceptual questions during the cumulative final examination than students receiving full notes. Students receiving full notes also self-reported more negative effects on attendance. We provide possible interpretations of these data and suggest areas for further investigation.
Enhancing Students' Notetaking through Training and Evaluation
Journal of Reading
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Student note-taking related to university examination performance
Higher Education, 1984
Student note-taking is an almost universal activity among university students, yet few naturalistic studies have examined relationships between note-taking practices and subsequent examination performance. Complete sets of notes on an introductory psychology course, involving 75 lectures presented by ten instructors, were obtained from nineteen male and nineteen female students. Notes on ten selected lectures (one per instructor) were analysed, and information derived about class attendance and the quantity, organization, and presentation of the notes. Variables based on this information were then correlated with performance on two three-hour final examination papers (one multiple-choice, one essay). High correlations were found between the quantity of notes and examination performance. Surprisingly, these correlations increased in subsamples consisting of those students who attended class most diligently. The correlations involving the multiple-choice examination tended to be higher than those involving the essay examination, most probably because of wider sampling of lecture content and a more factual orientation in the multiple-choice examination. The results appear to conflict with the advice given in student study guides, many of which suggest that students should be very selective and concise in their note-taking.
Improving the Quality of Student Notes
Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, 1991
Much of classroom learning at the secondary and postsecondary levels depends on understanding and retaining information from lectures. In most cases, students are expected to take notes and to review them in preparation for testing of lecture material. Such note-taking may serve a two-fold purpose: as a means of encoding the incoming information in a way that is meaningful for the listener, which serves to make the material more memorable from the outset (encoding function); and as a means of simply storing the information until the time of review (external storage function). Although these two purposes often have been treated as though they were mutually exclusive, several studies (e.g., Maqsud, 1980; Knight & McKelvie, 1986) point to a more complex relationship in which the two vary in their relative importance as a function of the individual, the material, and the review and testing conditions.