Immediate and Delayed Recall of Lecture Material as a Function of Note Taking

Abstract

Randomly chosen halves of an undergraduate class were instructed either to take notes in their usual manner or to refrain from note taking while listening to a guest lecturer. Immediately following the lecture, notes were collected and a quiz on the lecture was administered. Ten days later, a second quiz was administered. Statistical analysis indicated that the note-taking group performed significantly better overall than the no-notes group on both the immediate and the delayed quizzes. Both groups showed a significant decline in performance on the latter quiz. Alternative explanations for these results were examined.