Positive Effects of Restricting Student Note-Taking in a Capstone Psychology Course

Abstract

Two versions of a senior-level capstone course with differing note-taking strategies were compared. In one semester, a traditional student note-taking format was used; in another semester, student note-taking was rendered unnecessary by providing students with complete instructor notes. Student performance in the course as well as student opinions of the course itself and the new no-notes format were assessed. The nature of students’ in-class participation increased significantly with the no–note-taking format, and final grades exhibited a modest improvement as well. Students were overwhelmingly positive in their reactions to the approach. Recommendations regarding the potential benefits of reducing the divided attention demands of note-taking in the classroom are discussed.

Keywords

student note-taking divided attention classroom participation

Numerous reviews of student note-taking have emphasized the complexity of the task for the student who must listen to novel and often difficult material presented at a range of paces, identify and extract critical components of that information, organize the material in a personally meaningful fashion, and transcribe it in a format that will allow for useful review later, while simultaneously keeping abreast with what is happening in the classroom (e.g., Bligh, 2000; Dezure, Kaplan, & Deerman, 2001; Glenn, 2010). Given the competing nature of these multiple underlying cognitive tasks that comprise note-taking, it is not surprising that the quality of note-taking among college students has been found to be so poor. Since at least the 1960s, many studies have reported the striking level of omissions of key items in student notes, reaching levels of almost 90% in freshmen (Hartley & Cameron, 1967; Howe, 1970; Kiewra, 1985). Related work has found frequent inaccuracies in the information recorded in notes, gross oversimplifications of the material in the notes, and poor organization of the notes in which key items and supporting material are not distinguished (see the review by Dezure et al., 2001).

In spite of these difficulties, it has also been found that note-taking is generally beneficial for student learning. Students who take notes and review them tend to perform better than students who do not (e.g., Kiewra et al., 1991; Nilson, 2010; Titsworth & Kiewra, 2004). Consequently, one popular area of research has involved the consideration of improved strategies for note-taking that may allow the student to overcome the inherent weaknesses of the divided attention task represented by note-taking during a class period (e.g., Kiewra, Benton, Kim, Risch, & Christensen, 1995). Although the Cornell Method, in which students explicitly format their note pages following a strict template (Pauk & Owens, 2010), is probably the best known, other approaches abound. The web is replete with links to all manner of note-taking strategies, including “form-free note-taking” that tries to go beyond the traditional linear format of notes by emphasizing the critical linkages between key points and “visual note-taking,” which presumably engages the nonverbal right hemisphere.

In contrast to this dominant trend of seeking methods to improve the quality of students’ note-taking, the present work involves a quasi-experiment that considered the potential benefits in some contexts of essentially eliminating this competing task from students’ in-class activities. Rather recently, especially with regard to the controversy concerning laptop usage in the classroom, the divided-attention aspect of note-taking has been emphasized (e.g., Fried, 2008; Glenn, 2010) and the possible counterproductive nature of classroom note-taking has been raised. Although there has been some work examining the relative benefits of limiting student note-taking (e.g., Collingwood & Hughes, 1978; Cornelius & Owen-DeSchryver, 2008; Vandehey, Marsh, & Diekhoff, 2005), this work has generally suffered from weak external validity because it has used noncourse-related materials, isolated lectures, or immediate testing. In the present work, the type of note-taking available to students was varied across successive fall semesters in a senior capstone course in psychology. For one semester, a traditional outline of each course topic was provided throughout the entire semester, and typical note-taking by students was encouraged. For the next semester, the instructor provided complete notes to augment the standard outline for each course topic; and students were explicitly informed that note-taking was no longer necessary. It was hypothesized that the removal of the note-taking responsibility would allow students to engage more in the classroom discussion, thereby fostering more active learning on their part. The degree of students’ participation in the class, student attendance levels, and students’ overall performance in the course were compared across the two formats; and student’s opinion of the no–note-taking format was assessed. It was expected that measures of student participation in the lectures as well as student perceptions of their engagement with the course material and their overall satisfaction with the course would improve in the no–note-taking format. Ratings of other basic course characteristics, such as clarity of course goals, fairness of grading, respectful treatment of students, relevance of assignments, and observed cheating, were not expected to change across the two formats.

Method

Participants

Seniors (N = 36) enrolled in a capstone course, Foundations of Modern Psychology, offered in the psychology curriculum at Villanova in the fall of 2011 and students enrolled in the same course (N = 19) in the fall of 2012 served as participants. There was no significant difference in the grade point average of the no–note-taking students (M = 3.45, SD = 0.26) and the note-taking students (M = 3.38, SD = 0.39), t(53) = 0.89, p > .05. Similarly, there was no significant difference in the average combined SAT scores for the no–note-taking students (M = 1283, SD = 91.60) and the note-taking students (M = 1280, SD = 104.84), t(45) = .08, p > .05.¹

Materials

A traditional block outline for each of the 16 broad course topics comprising the course was prepared. These multipage outlines provided a detailed organization of the lecture material, clearly indicating the organization and chronology of the material to be discussed in the lecture. In addition, the outlines contained examples of particular concepts along with reference to supporting research; and the outlines also included relevant clipart, diagrams, and photographs to reinforce particular points. This same outline was then markedly expanded to include detailed lecture notes that elucidated each of the outline’s headings, subheadings, examples, and diagrams. These lecture notes were intended to be very complete, rendering additional note-taking by the student unnecessary and allowing students to feel confident that their own note-taking would be redundant.

Procedure

Students enrolled in the course in fall of 2011 were provided with the standard outline of each course topic 1 or 2 days previous to the respective lecture. This outline was e-mailed to them by the instructor. Students enrolled in the second fall semester were e-mailed the expanded version of each outline and were explicitly instructed that note-taking during class was unnecessary because of the detailed character of the notes provided to them. In all other respects, the course was as identical as possible across the two semesters: the same two textbooks, the same four writing assignments, the same PowerPoint slides, nearly identical exams, and the same grading scale were used. In addition to final grades in the course, student ratings of the course and instructor were analyzed. At Villanova, the instrument for assessing student ratings is the anonymous Course and Teacher Survey (CATS) and it consists of 22 positive statements to be rated on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale along with an open-ended section for student comments. The individual 22 items include questions about basic course mechanics and classroom atmosphere (e.g., asking students to rate their views of the course assignments, exams, use of class time, in-class discussions, instructor feedback to students, grading, etc.) and two broad summative items about their overall view of the course content and the quality of instruction they received. A few additional items were added to the standard CATS instrument to assess student opinion of the no-notes approach in the second semester. These included a rating of the students’ views of the notes-free format, whether they found it necessary to take additional notes, and whether the students would prefer to enroll in future courses that employed the notes-free format.

Throughout the semester, the degree of student participation in the classes was determined from audiorecordings of the actual class lectures. These recordings were later coded by a graduate student unfamiliar with the research hypothesis. Each student comment or question was analyzed to determine whether it was primarily “factual” (dealing with a specific point of fact or clarification) or “conceptual” (dealing with integrating points or arguments).

Results

Student Participation

There was a little difference in the average number of times students in the two semesters spoke during a typical lecture. For the note-taking group, M = 10.6 and SD = 4.45, and for the no–note-taking group M = 11.5 and SD = 6.44, t(39) = 0.49, p > .05. However, there was a significant change in the nature of the comments. The mean proportion of the in-class interactions that were deemed to be of a “conceptual” nature rose from .58 under the note-taking format to .71 under the no–note-taking format, t(39) = 2.03, p < .05, η² = .09. Even if only those interactions were considered in which students spontaneously asked a question or made a comment without prompting by an instructor’s question, the same pattern appeared to remain: .78 versus .88, t(39) = 1.56, p = .06, η² = .06, for a one-tail test. (Because of the general exploratory nature of the present work, a significance level of p < .10 was adopted for all the analyses.)

A related issue of concern prior to the study involved the possibility of increased absenteeism by students in the no–note-taking section. This did not occur. Average daily class attendance in the standard Note-taking section was 87% (SD = 9.03); and average daily class attendance in the no–note-taking section was 92% (SD = 7.45). Furthermore, both these figures underestimate actual class attendance because a student arriving late for class was likely judged to be absent.

Student Grades

Probably because of the capstone nature of the course and the generally homogeneous nature of the first-semester seniors comprising the students in the successive fall semesters, final course grades exhibited a restricted range between “C−” and “A” in both semesters; no grades of “F” or “D” were awarded. The mean final grade for students under the standard note-taking format was 83.6% (SD = 5.46); and mean final grade for students under the no–note-taking format was 85.5% (SD = 7.42). Because the possibility of a ceiling effect with these average grades seemed likely due to the nature of this class, the assignment of letter grades was looked at more closely. It was determined that the proportion of students earning grades of “A−” or “A” rose from .36 to .53, suggesting a modest improvement in overall student performance. If a 2 × 3 table was constructed for the number of C-level grades, B-level grades, and A-level grades under the two teaching formats, a significant difference was obtained, χ ²(df = 2) = 11.43, p < .01, indicating different assignments to the grade categories under the two formats.

Student Attitudes

Student ratings of the course in the standard notes format were rather good. On the 20 formative (descriptive) items, the ratings averaged 4.5; on the 2 broad evaluative items, the ratings averaged 4.4. These were quite high and again raised the possibility of ceiling effects limiting indications of improvement in the subsequent no–note-taking term. Nonetheless, student ratings improved in the no–note-taking semester; and the breadth of the improvement was quite large. Of the 22 items rated by students, 16 improved from the note-taking semester to the no–note-taking semester, suggesting more than chance variability (p < .05 as a binomial probability). Further analysis of the specific areas of improved ratings generally supported the a priori predictions. The mean ratings on the 2 broad evaluative items about course content and quality of instruction increased to 4.5 (from 4.4). Although the absolute difference was small, a 2 (note-taking vs. no–note-taking) × 2 (overall rating of course content vs. overall rating of instruction) revealed a significant effect of format, F(1, 48) = 3.85, p < .05, η² = .07.² And there was a significant difference between the ratings on the two items, F(1, 48) = 32.77, p < .001, η² = .39, with the rating on the quality of instruction higher for both groups; but the interaction was not significant, F < 1.0. For each of the two items, a one-tailed t-test revealed significantly higher ratings in the no–note-taking semester: t(48) = 1.86, p < .05, η² = .07, for the perceived quality of instruction, and t(48) = 1.77, p < .05, η² = .06, for the perceived value of course content. The mean ratings on the 20 formative items increased to 4.7 (from 4.5) in the no–note-taking semester. However, as noted in the Introduction section, little change had been predicted in students’ views of several basic aspects of the course: clarity of course goals, respectful treatment of students, keeping up with coursework, relevance of exams, fairness of grading, availability of instructor outside of class, class attendance, clarity of instructions for assignments, perceived cheating, and hard work required for good grade. In fact, on these 10 dimensions, no obvious pattern emerged; and 6 were rated higher in the no–note-taking semester and 4 were rated higher in the note-taking semester. On only the single item of employs relevant tests and assignments, there was a significant difference between formats, with the no–note-taking class providing higher ratings, t(48) = 2.33, p < .01, η² = .10. In contrast, certain dimensions of the course had been hypothesized a priori to be particularly sensitive to the shift from the note-taking to the no–note-taking format: course organization, intellectual stimulation, learned a great deal, instructor interacts effectively, instructor encourages participation, instructor responds to student questions, instructor explains course material clearly, instructor’s enthusiasm, instructor provides useful feedback, and instructor uses class time effectively. Of 10 of these dimensions, 8 were rated higher in the no–note-taking section. In five cases, the difference was significant for the predicted superiority of the no–note-taking format: t(48) = 1.55, p < .06, η² = .05, for interacts effectively; t(48) = 1.54, p < .05, η² = .05, for responds effectively to student questions; t(48) = 3.21, p < .05, η² = .18, for provides helpful feedback; t(48) = 2.33, p < .05, η² = .10, for found the course intellectually stimulating; and t(48) = 1.39, p < .08, η² = .04, for learned a great deal.

Finally, students in the no–note-taking section were explicitly asked about their usage of the notes provided to them and their opinion of the no–note-taking approach. On a 5-point scale inquiring how often students in the no–note-taking section took their own notes from 1 (never) to 5 (always), student ratings averaged 3.0 (sometimes). However, in their open-ended comments, several students indicated that the degree of note-taking was extremely modest. This matched the instructor’s informal observation that, although students occasionally jotted down an idea, the typical impression of extensive note-taking was absent.

When asked whether they would prefer to enroll in future courses with the no–note-taking format or the more traditional note-taking format, the results were very clear. Only 2 of the 18 students preferred the standard format; 1 student was undecided; and 15 favored the notes-free format in future courses, χ²(df = 2) = 20.33, p < .001. Moreover, their anonymous open-ended comments repeatedly reinforced this view. Remarks such as “…notes-free format allowed me to listen to what was being said rather than scrambling to take notes,” “…notes-free format was extremely helpful in studying and understanding the material,” and “…notes-free format allows me to actually learn (and enjoy) the material w/o the pressure to write everything down” were common.

Discussion

The results of replacing typical student note-taking with instructor’s notes that were provided to students prior to class meetings of a senior capstone course in psychology are encouraging. The quality of student participation in the class increased significantly in the no–note-taking format, and there were indications of modest improvement in grades as well. Moreover, student reactions to the no–note-taking format were strikingly positive. Class attendance was not adversely affected; and student ratings of the course, especially on the two overall evaluative items of instruction quality and course content and on the dimensions related to in-class participation, improved significantly. Finally, when asked whether they would prefer to enroll in future courses with a no–note-taking format, there was an overwhelming preference for the no–note-taking format over the traditional note-taking format.

Although the impact of the no–note-taking format is encouraging in the particular context investigated in this study, there is an obvious need to replicate this work because of the unusual character of both the students (college seniors) and the course (small lecture/discussion format) involved. How the no–note-taking approach would fare in other classroom contexts is an open question. This caution is reinforced by the fact that some previous work with instructor-provided notes has not reported the apparent benefits described in the present work (Cornelius & Owen-DeSchryer, 2008). However, several critical differences between that work and the present work make comparison difficult, including freshmen versus senior students, introductory versus capstone course, large versus small classes, and significant note-sharing by students in the Cornelius and Owen-Deschryer (2008) study. These several factors reinforce the clear need for caution in extrapolating from the present results. Nonetheless, the positive effects obtained in the present work provide a degree of support for the concern with divided attention effects in the classroom.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I thank Takakuni Suzuki and Caitlin Dresler for their assistance with the data coding and statistical analyses. The research protocol employed in this research received prior approval from the University’s institutional review board (IRB).

Author’s Note

The results described in this article were presented at the annual Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching, Bethesda, Maryland, May 30 to June 2, 2013.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant to the author from the Villanova Institute for Teaching and Learning (VITAL).

Notes

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