Students' note-taking behaviors and the efficacy of providing the instructor's notes for review

College students viewed a videotaped lecture with or without taking notes. Average performance between the two groups did not differ on an immediate test. The encoding effect of note taking was therefore unsupported. Two days later, note takers reviewed their notes while listeners reviewed the instructor's notes in preparation for the delayed exam. Subjects who reviewed the instructor's notes achieved significantly more, on factual items, than did subjects who reviewed their own relatively brief and unorganized notes. Thus, listening to a lecture and subsequently reviewing the instructor's notes prior to a delayed exam leads to relatively higher achievement than does the traditional method of taking and reviewing personal lecture notes.     

Cognitive style: Effects of structure at acquisition and testing

This experiment examined the recall and recognition performance of 53 field-independent and 55 field-dependent learners who were with or without structure at the time of acquisition and/or at the time of recall. Structure was provided in the form of an organizational chart that prompted reorganization of textual material while taking notes at acquisition, and that cued the recall of textual material at testing. Field-dependent learners recalled more of the textual material when provided with structure during both acquisition and recall or when structure was not provided at all. Conversely, field-independent learners recalled more of the textual material when structure was provided only at acquisition or recall. This pattern of interaction was also apparent for multiple-choice performance and for learningtechnique preference as indicated by responses to a questionnaire.     

Use of Student Notes and Lecture Summaries as Study Guides for Recall

Abstract

This study represents an extension of previous research on interfering and facilitating variables affecting the encoding function of note taking by adding several review conditions. Ninety-six subjects were assigned to five note-taking and three non-note-taking groups. Subjects heard a 16-minute segmented lecture and recalled lecture content 48 hours later. The review of notes neutralized both the interfering and facilitating effects on recall of note-taking manipulations reported in previous research. Review of student-generated notes resulted in better recall than did review of lecturer-generated summaries.     

Bilingual referents in cognitive processing

The study reported investigated whether using both of a bilingual's languages to process expository text enhanced or impaired comprehension. Eighty French-English bilinguals read a passage written in either French or English, took notes on the passage in either French or English, and completed tests of free recall and inference in French and English. Bilinguals who used both of their languages to read and take notes neither recognized nor recalled more information overall than their counterparts who read and took notes in the same language. Bilinguals who read and took notes in alternate languages, however, recalled more of those notes than subjects who read and took notes in the same language. Implications for future research pertaining to the interaction of bilinguals' languages during processing of text are discussed.     

The encoding versus the external storage hypothesis in note taking

College students (N = 85) read a passage in which each sentence had been normatively assessed as to its importance to the overall meaning of the passage. Students expecting an essay examination took notes on sentences of higher structural importance than those anticipating a multiple choice test, even though there was no difference in the number of notes taken or in total test performance. The students took notes on 31% of the passage sentences and such notes were of high structural importance value. Most importantly, note taking seemed to serve as both an encoding device and as an external storage mechanism, with the latter being the more important function. The external storage function not only led to enhanced recall of the notes, but also facilitated the reconstruction of other parts of the passage.     

Revising lecture notes: how revision,pauses, and partners affect note taking and achievement

Note taking has been categorized as a two-stage process: the recording of notes and the review of notes. We contend that note taking might best involve a three-stage process where the missing stage is revision. This study investigated the benefits of revising lecture notes and addressed two questions: First, is revision more effective than non-revision? Second, what revision method is best? Experiment 1 addressed the first question by comparing the performance of participants who revise or recopy lecture notes. Experiment 2 addressed the second question by investigating whether revision was best done (a) during pauses throughout the lecture or one equally-timed pause after the lecture, and (b) with a partner or alone. Dependent measures were original and additional notes and fact and relationship test scores. Results upheld three effects: (a) a modest revision effect—revisers recorded more additional notes and achieved somewhat higher scores on relationship items than re-copiers, (b) a pause effect—those revising during pauses outperformed those revising after the lecture on the notes and achievement measures, and (c) a modest partner effect—those revising with partners recorded more original notes than those revising alone. Furthermore, the combination of pauses and partners has merit and holds promise as a means for revision. Overall, findings suggested that revision is a new student-centered means to boost lecture note taking and achievement.     

The Effects of Strategic Notetaking on the Recall and Comprehension of Lecture Information for High School Students with Learning Disabilities

This investigation examined the effects of strategic notetaking on the recall and comprehension of high school students with learning disabilities (LD) or educable mental retardation (EMR). Twenty-six students with high incidence disabilities (LD or EMR) were randomly assigned by grade and disability to either an experimental or control group. Using strategic notetaking, students in the experimental group were taught to independently take notes while viewing a videotaped lecture. Students who were taught strategic notetaking scored significantly higher on measures of immediate free recall, long-term free recall, comprehension, and number of notes recorded than students in the control group who used conventional notetaking. The limitations of the research and implications of this technique for classroom application are discussed.     

The effects of test expectations based upon goals on the free recall of learning from text

The number of facts college students correctly recalled was not affected by whether they were provided goals which did or did not encourage them to reorganize the passage material they studied. This held both for learners asked to recall all facts they could and those asked to recall only a portion of the goal-targeted facts. Learners whose recall exhibited reorganization of passage material did not differ in number of correctly recalled facts from those who failed to reorganize the passage material. Learners were more apt to reorganize the text materials when asked to recall only a portion of the goal-targeted facts than when asked to recall all facts they could. Self-report data suggest learners primarily use goals to rehearse the targeted material only after they carefully read a study passage.     

Effects of time of review and test expectancy on learning from text

The effects of varying placement of a review period and test expectancy on students' notetaking, review strategies, and performance on delayed free recall, application, and cloze tests were investigated. One hundred fifty-six undergraduates took notes on two texts with the expectation that they would be tested for quantity of information remembered from one text and for their ability to apply information from a second text. Students were assigned to one of five review conditions: (a) at acquisition, (b) 1 day after acquisition, (c) prior to test, (d) mental review prior to test, and (e) no review. Results revealed that placement of a review period influences free recall performance, but has no effect on cloze and application test performances. Contrary to prediction, varying expectancy did not enhance performance on criterion measures which matched students' expectancies compared to those which did not.     

The effects of instructional organization and locus of control orientation on meaningful learning in high school biology students

This study investigated the effects on meaningful learning achievement of concept-related instructional organization and locus of control orientation. Two five-week instructional treatments were developed, one which explicitly stressed concept relationships and one which did not. Five hundred and forty-one subjects at six Indiana high schools were involved in the study. Analyses of covariance of posttest and six-week retention test scores with treatment as the independent variable showed no significant treatment effect. Analyses of variance of test scores with locus of control orientation as the independent variable resulted in highly statistically significant differences. Subjects with an internal locus of control orientation achieved more than externally oriented subjects. A two-way analysis of covariance by treatment and locus of control orientation resulted in a statistically significant treatment/locus of control interaction effect for retention test scores. Externally oriented subjects who were exposed to the concept-related treatment generally retained more than those in the comparison group. Internally oriented subjects retained about the same amount of information regardless of treatment group. When the male and female subjects were analyzed separately, the interaction effect appeared greater for females than for males.     

Spoken organizational lecture cues and student notetaking as facilitators of student learning

Previous research has shown that providing written organizational lecture cues boosts notetaking and that boosting notetaking raises achievement. Lecture learning literature, however, is silent on whether spoken organizational lecture cues boost notetaking and achievement. To find out, participants listened to a lecture that contained or did not contain spoken organizational lecture cues. Participants either recorded lecture notes or refrained from notetaking while listening to the cued or uncued lecture. Results showed that spoken organizational lecture cues boosted the number of noted organizational points and details by 39 and 35%, respectively. Results also confirmed that lecture cues and notetaking work to raise achievement. Notetaking resulted in about 13% higher test achievement than not taking notes. Cueing raised test achievement 15–45% versus noncueing. Educators are encouraged to use spoken organizational cues while presenting lectures.     

Prose organization and recall

In two experiments, subjects read prose materials with various organizations of the superordinate and subordinate conceptual structure of the passage. Variables included organizational salience, massed versus distributed repetition of the passage, nature of the cueing at recall, and number of exposures. In Experiment I, distributed repetition resulted in superior recall, extending the generality of that effect to prose materials; and an advance organizer treatment resulted in lower recall for scrambled materials, contrary to Ausubel's (1960) cognitive theory. High ability subjects recalled more categories than low ability subjects, but the same amount of within-category information. In Experiment II, materials which increased the salience of the organizational structure of the passage were better recalled than scrambled materials after three exposures, or on a test which cued the major categories in the passage. Cueing was detrimental to performance for subjects reading the scrambled passage. Results are discussed in terms of implications for educational practice.     

Storybook models and achievement behavior of preschool children

The effects of orally presented storybook models on children's cognitive achievement behavior were assessed in two experiments. Experiment I involved 100 preschool-age children who were given one exposure to either a story depicting achievement behaviors by a male/female model, or a control story describing no achievement behavior. Subjects then were asked to perform a related achievement task. No significant modeling effects were found, but a significant relationship existed between the children's recall of the story content and their performance on the subsequent task. Experiment 11 employed 60 preschool-age children who were given repeated exposures (3 to 4) to, and group discussion of, the same achievement stories or non-achievement control story. A significant relationship was observed between type of story and type of solutions to the subsequent achievement task. These findings are discussed in the context of modeling theory, with practical implications.     

The Effects of Retelling Upon Reading Comprehension and Recall of Text Information

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of retelling (free recall) upon the comprehension and recall of text information for 93 fourth-grade students. Subjects were assigned randomly to one of two generative learning strategy treatment conditions: retelling or illustrating. Subjects participated in four training sessions and one test session. For each of the four training sessions subjects silently read a passage and then, according to treatment condition, either retold the important parts of the passage or illustrated the important parts of the passage. For the test passage all subjects silently read the passage, and then rendered a free recall. Two days later all subjects rendered a delayed free recall and answered 10 literal and 10 inferential questions about the test passage. Statistically significant differences were found on all measures of reading comprehension and recall (immediate free recall, two-day delayed free recall, and responses to literal and inferential questions) in favor of the subjects who received practice in retelling. The results suggest that retelling is a highly potent generative learning strategy and that retelling has direct, beneficial consequences for children's processing of subsequent text.     

The Effect of Encoding and an External Memory Device on Note Taking

College students were randomly assigned to seven note-taking and review conditions in order to determine the relative importance of the functions of encoding and either an externally provided or a personally produced memory device. Results of the post-test showed that a combination of encoding and reviewing either one’s own notes or an outline of the lecture produced the best recall scores, while either personally encoding notes or being provided with a lecture outline during the lecture accompanied by “mental” review produced the least recall. The findings are discussed in terms of practical suggestions for professors and their students.     

体育专业考生高考前焦虑、成就目标与成绩关系的研究

该研究以238名参与者为样本,对其考前焦虑、成就目标及体育高考成绩进行了考察,采用相关分析和回归分析探讨了三者之间的关系.结果表明,体育高考生的焦虑水平远远高于一般正常人;考前焦虑与掌握趋近目标显著负相关,与掌握回避目标和成绩回避目标显著正相关.掌握趋近目标和掌握回避目标是状态焦虑的预测变量,而特质焦虑的预测变量同时包括四种目标定向;体育高考总分和800M与考前焦虑显著负相关,成就目标与高考成绩的相关较弱.     

The influence of decision factors on what is reported in free recall of a brief narrative

In recent research on memory for prose, attention has focused on the influence of a reader's perspective or schema on what is encoded and subsequently recalled. Previous research has revealed that subjects were able to recall previously unrecalled information if they were directed to take a new perspective during a second recall trial. This has been termed the perspective shift effect. This paper describes two possible mechanisms to account for the perspective shift effect—a retrieval process and a decision process. Two experiments which investigated the roles of these processes in the perspective shift effect are described. Experiment 1 employed an incentive to influence the subjects' criterion for reporting recalled information. Experiment 2 obtained separate estimates for decision and memory processes by applying signal detection theory. The results of both experiments provide data that tend to rule out the decision process as an important factor in the perspective shift phenomena in recall.     

Applying questioning or reading strategy to review technology enhanced coedited notes of elementary school students

The authors examined whether applying questioning review better enhances elementary level students' learning from technology-enhanced coediting-based note taking than does traditional reading review. A nonequivalent comparison group quasi-experimental design was implemented and replicated on four independent units. Two sixth grade elementary classes (66 students) participated in this study and were arranged into coediting notes with questioning review and coediting notes with reading review conditions respectively. The comparisons of student notes and achievement tests do not reveal that the questioning review group achieves better performance than does the reading review group. Considerations associated with technology enhanced coediting notes and questions are discussed based on the results.