In-class and after-class lecture note-taking strategies

Abstract

There is a need to better understand note-taking in lectures. Specifically, how in-class and after-class note-taking strategies are used, whether the use of in-class and after-class note-taking strategies varies by gender, year of study and field of major/discipline and to explore the connection between the use of in-class note-taking strategies and after-class note-taking strategies. The study described in this article gathered data from 1072 undergraduate students. The results showed that during class, the most frequently employed strategy was key point selection, followed by comprehension-monitoring, organisation, copying and elaboration. After class, the strategy employed most frequently was elaboration, followed by organisation and help-seeking. It was revealed that females are more likely than males to employ copying, key point selection, organisation and comprehension-monitoring strategies during class as well as elaboration, organisation and help-seeking strategies after class. In addition, students majoring in humanities or social sciences are more likely than those majoring in the natural sciences to use key point selection strategy during class. Finally, students’ in-class note-taking strategies were correlated with their after-class note-taking strategies. Implications for practice are presented.

Keywords

after-class note-taking in-class note-taking lecture note-taking note-taking strategies

Taking notes in class is an active learning method that is widely used by students (Castello and Monereo, 2005; Luo et al., 2016; Machida et al., 2018). Studies show that note-taking serves the dual function of encoding and reviewing and can enhance learning performance (Kobayashi, 2005, 2006a, 2006b). However, this does not indicate that students who take notes in class are guaranteed to perform well. Studies have highlighted that many students are not effective note-takers; therefore, even if they have taken notes in class, those notes may not help them effectively encode and review the learning contents (Chen, 2013; Chen et al., 2017; Kobayashi, 2005; Raver and Maydosz, 2010). Therefore, instead of focusing on ‘whether’ students should take notes in class, more attention ought to be paid to ‘how’ the students take notes in class or in other words, the use of lecture note-taking strategies.

To understand the note-taking ability of students, research has primarily examined the content of lecture notes to understand the quality of the notes taken. The findings showed that although the quality of lecture notes is an important factor that can positively predict students’ learning performance (Chen, 2013; Peverly et al., 2007), the overall quality of students’ lecture notes is not ideal, thereby suggesting that they are using ineffective note-taking strategies (Chen, 2013; Cukras, 2006; Raver and Maydosz, 2010). It is worth highlighting that the method of evaluating the effectiveness of note-taking strategies, based on the quality of notes, is questionable. Although lecture notes are considered the outcome of a student’s note-taking because they can partially characterise the strategies used, they should not be considered a complete representation of the strategies used. Learning strategies are the mental operations or techniques a student uses for problem-solving and performance enhancement (Alexander, 2006; Alexander and Jetton, 2000). Based on this concept, the output quality of note-taking alone cannot illustrate, fully and in detail, the cognitive processes or skills adopted by students during their note-taking process.

Therefore, to understand students’ lecture note-taking, the foundation of learning strategies is necessary. Moreover, it has been noted that lecture note-taking is a learning method that comprises multiple learning strategies and includes both in- and after-class scenarios. Students adopt more than one strategy to take complete, elaborate and organised notes. Because the notes taken by students in class are likely to have deficiencies, in terms of completeness, elaborateness and organisation, after-class reinforcement is required to form effective lecture notes (Kiewra and Dubois, 1998; Pauk, 2001; Van Meter et al., 1994). Few studies have focused on the use of in- and after-class lecture note-taking strategies by students, as well as the correlation between the two strategies.

Functions of lecture note-taking

Studies by Di Vesta and Gray (1972, 1973) are considered major milestones in note-taking research; they found that after listening to the same articles, participants who were asked to take notes while listening performed better in the test that followed, compared with participants who were asked not to take notes. Di Vesta and Gray proposed that note-taking will not interfere with listening and learning; it can instead help students improve how they encode content. Moreover, notes are an external storage tool, which can help students to later review content that they have already listened to. Therefore, they suggested investigating the encoding and reviewing functions of note-taking. Since then, considerable research on note-taking has compared the influence of note-taking on the learning performance of students who take notes with those who do not take notes, and of those who review notes with those who do not review notes. Most of these studies show that compared to students who do not take notes, those who take notes exhibit better learning performance and compared to students who do not review notes, those who review notes exhibit better learning performance (Bohay et al., 2011; Van Meter et al., 1994). Meta-analysis studies have also supported the argument that note-taking has encoding and reviewing effects on learning performance (Kobayashi, 2005, 2006a, 2006b).

However, this finding does not mean that only lecture note-taking will improve students’ learning performance. In the 1980s and 1990s, several studies demonstrated that the key factors affecting students’ performance were not based on whether they had taken notes but were instead based on the process they used for note-taking (Castello and Monereo, 2005). According to the information processing model of memory, note-taking contributes to performance because it can increase the likelihood of students retaining the potential content structure of the lecture and stimulate the emergence of students’ generative processes that connect the lecture content to their prior knowledge (Mayer, 2008). Research shows that some note-taking processes can facilitate the elaboration of information and restructuring of the notes’ content, such as selecting key points and paraphrasing, which may deepen students’ analysis of the semantics of the lecture, help them to achieve an improved understanding of the content and improve learning performance. However, some processes that merely repeat the information verbatim do not have the same effect on learning performance (Kiewra et al., 1991; Van Meter et al., 1994). Therefore, ‘how to’ take lecture notes, or the use of note-taking strategies, has an influence on learning performance.

Lecture note-taking strategies

Lecture note-taking cannot be conceived as passively copying what is heard in lectures. It involves an active learning process that strongly depends on students’ working memory to manage information comprehension, selection and production concurrently with the final written product (notes), similar to the original composition (Chen et al., 2017; Piolat et al., 2005). Multiple learning strategies are adopted in the process of lecture note-taking. Learning strategies are mental operations or techniques that are employed to solve problems or to enhance performance (Alexander, 2006; Alexander et al., 1998; Alexander and Jetton, 2000). According to the information processing theory of memory, during learning, students must engage in the process of information processing, which comprises selection, construction, integration and acquisition. There are five strategies that would affect students’ information processing, including (1) rehearsal strategies, which focus on repeating of information; (2) elaboration strategies, which focus on establishing external connections between learning materials and one’s prior knowledge; (3) organisation strategies, which involve the establishment of internal connections within the parts of the learning materials; (4) metacognitive strategies (or comprehension-monitoring strategies), which monitors the process of information processing to achieve learning goals, including planning and monitoring cognitive activities, and checking results; and (5) affective/motivational strategies, which supports the process of information processing, such as attention focusing, directing anxiety, time management and reducing stress (Braun et al., 2012; Mayer, 1988, 2008; Weinstein et al., 2011; Weinstein and Mayer, 1986).

Research has identified three general types of learning strategies used by students. The first general strategy category is cognitive strategies, which are the basic and complex strategies for information processing from texts and lectures, including rehearsal, elaboration, organisation and critical thinking. The second general strategy category is metacognitive strategies, which help students to control and regulate their own cognition, including planning, monitoring and regulating cognitive activities. The third general strategy category is resource management strategies, which help students to control other resources besides their cognition, including time management, study environment, regulation of effort, peer learning and help-seeking (Duncan and McKeachie, 2005; Pintrich, 2004; Pintrich et al., 1993; Vermunt, 1996).

Lecture note-taking strategies can be defined as the mental processes or techniques employed by a student while taking lecture notes to enhance learning performance. To encode the content of the lectures, a student will employ multiple strategies during the lecture note-taking process. It has been noted that adopting lecture note-taking strategies involves both in- and after-class scenarios. Many studies have indicated that effective lecture notes are not completed during classes, but rather after classes. Van Meter et al. (1994) found that once students perceived that the notes taken in class were inadequate for reaching their goals, they would rewrite the notes while focusing on elaborating details or ask for assistance from others to correct or improve their notes after class. Pauk (2001) highlighted in their well-known Cornell note-taking system that to increase the effectiveness of note-taking, students should properly plan the structure of note columns to make it easy for in-class recording, as well as after-class reviewing and clarification. Their system suggests that when taking notes in class, students should attempt to use their own words to elaborate the content, save spaces between main ideas and the headings, avoid writing verbatim sentences and use symbols or abbreviations as substitutes for certain words. After class, students should review the notes to clarify any unclear ideas. During this stage, the students can compare their own notes to the textbooks or the notes of other students, retrieve the key ideas, concepts or items from the notes as recall clues, as well as summarise the content of the notes.

To be effective note-takers, students should strive to take complete, elaborate and organised notes in classes. After class, they should devote some time to polishing the notes to accomplish a set of complete, elaborate and organised lecture notes (Kiewra and Dubois, 1998). During classes, the suggested strategies for taking complete notes include recording key concepts, details, and examples or cases; using abbreviations and substitutional symbols; asking the lecturer to repeat or re-interpret a concept or provide examples when necessary; focusing on the verbal and non-verbal cues and written clues provided by the lecturer; self-monitoring during the note-taking process; and recording the lecture, if necessary, to ensure that it can be repeated later to complete the missing details after class. Suggested elaboration strategies include using the externally connected information provided by the lecturer for note-taking, and writing one’s own opinions, questions, examples or comments targeting the content of the notes. The suggested organisation strategies include using the components (including outlines or matrix charts) or verbal indications provided by the lecturer to organise the notes, using the existing structure or format of a previous or current lecture to organise the notes and recording the ideas in a linear form and sketching an occasional representation framework aside. After class, the suggested strategies for taking complete notes include comparing one’s own notes to notes taken by other students during the same lecture, completing missing parts and correcting mistakes, forming a group wherein each member reads out their notes to be supplemented by others students and consulting the lecturer when there are any unresolved questions. Moreover, suggested elaboration strategies include adding information that can enrich the elaborateness of the content or assist in memory recall, making summaries for the notes and keeping them as a record, and asking questions about the notes and then trying to find answers by reading textbooks, searching for information, asking classmates, or consulting lecturers, and recording these answers. The suggested after-class organisation strategies include identifying the connections between different parts in the notes and using charts and tables to illustrate the relationship of these parts (Kiewra and Dubois, 1998; Pauk, 2001).

Lecture note-taking involves the use of note-taking strategies both in and after class, thus relying on the combination of strategies to be used in both circumstances. However, few studies have provided evidence of the repertoire of lecture note-taking strategies that students may have. Moreover, research on lecture note-taking has primarily focused on students’ in-class note-taking; few studies have continued to explore after-class note-taking (Chen, 2013). Therefore, there is a need to examine the use of note-taking strategies by today’s students, to understand the use of note-taking strategies by students both in and after class, and explore the relationship between the two. Studies on lecture note-taking have suggested that there may be variability in the use of lecture note-taking strategies in relation to the increase of academic experience (Bonner and Holliday, 2006; Van Meter et al., 1994). In addition, studies on learning strategies have found that students’ use of learning strategies differ based on gender (Kesici et al., 2009; Lee, 2002; Rodarte-Luna and Sherry, 2008; Virtanen and Nevgi, 2010) and academic discipline (Vanderstoep et al., 1996; Virtanen and Nevgi, 2010). It is therefore important to ensure that any study into note-taking includes these three variables, that is, length of experience of note-taking, gender and discipline given that the use of lecture note-taking strategies by students may vary according to these. The following research questions are addressed:

How are in- and after-class note-taking strategies used?

Does the use of in- and after-class note-taking strategies vary based on gender, year of study and field of major/discipline?

What is the relationship between the use of in- and after-class note-taking strategies?

Method

Participants

The study participants were undergraduate university students in Taiwan. To acquire a more representative sample, stratified school sampling was used, and universities were selected based on their national geographic location (north, central, south and east) and their attributes (public or private). Ten universities were selected, including two national and two private universities in the northern region, one national and two private universities in the central region, one national and one private university in the southern region and one national university in the eastern region. Because there are many departments in each university, to ensure that the samples were not restricted to limited departments or year of study, after the sampling of universities, one to three classes of students who were enrolled in on-site, general education courses in each university were selected to participate in the questionnaire survey, according to the class size.

Instruments

A questionnaire focusing on the use of lecture note-taking strategies was used; this included basic information and a lecture note-taking strategy scale. Chinese, the language of the participants, was used. The basic information collected included gender, year of study and field of major. To help the students to better complete the questions on the lecture note-taking strategies scale, the questionnaire defined lecture notes as any information that students recorded on the lecture handouts, textbooks or their own notebooks regarding what they heard and saw in the class; in other words, records that were taken during the class. Next, students were asked to provide information such as the total number of credits they were required to earn, the number of courses they were required to study, the number of courses in which they took notes in class and the name of the courses in which they had taken notes most frequently in the current semester. Only one representative course was required; if a student had not taken any notes for the current semester, they were asked to write down the name of one course during their entire study period at the university in which they took lecture notes. For students who had never taken any notes since the date they had entered the university, they were asked not to continue answering the questionnaire. Finally, students were asked to identify what type of course the representative course belonged to.

The lecture note-taking strategies scales included a scale for in-class note-taking strategies and a scale for after-class note-taking strategies. After drafting the two scales, the researcher sent them to two experts specialising in learning strategies and currently teaching in universities to examine the appropriateness of the content and provide suggestions for adjustment. At the same time, the scales were also compiled into a questionnaire format and tested among 10 students; feedback on the wording and content of the questions were then collected. Based on the suggestions, the researcher made adjustments to some questions.

The in-class note-taking strategies scale

Copying: ‘I write down whatever I hear the lecturer say. I make a verbatim record of all course content that the lecturer wrote. I write down the course content explained, even though I am already familiar with it. I write down anything the lecturer writes that is related to the course content. I try to write down all the points highlighted. In addition to writing down the concepts, I also write down the examples provided’.

Key point selection: ‘I selectively write down the more important parts of the lecture content. I record lecture notes by summarising the main points. I mark/highlight particularly important places in my notes. I refer to the content of the lecture handouts or textbooks, and then select the information that must be recorded’.

Elaboration: ‘When listening to a lecture, I think about related information or questions before writing notes down. I add homophones or examples that I think of in my notes to help me remember the contents of the lecture. In addition to the contents explained by the lecturer, I also write down my own opinions and ideas’.

Organisation: ‘I use the outline method to make lecture notes. I use numbers to denote the order of the main topics. I use blank spaces to organise the main points of the content I have recorded. I use the outline of lecture handouts or textbooks to structure and organise the notes that I wrote’.

Comprehension-monitoring: ‘If there are sections of the lecture that I did not record in time, I immediately fill in the blanks by referring to a classmate’s notes. I distinguish between the important and less important contents of the notes I wrote down. I check my notes to ensure that I did not miss out any important content. I leave blank spaces in my notes so that I can supplement the contents in the future. If there is anything in my notes that I do not understand, I make mark/highlight it during the lecture. If there is anything that I do not understand during the lecture, I immediately refer to the contents of the textbook and then write them in my notes’.

The after-class note-taking strategies scale

Elaboration: ‘I read the relevant chapters in the textbook and add supplementary information to my lecture notes using my own words. I mark/highlight the important points in my lecture notes by underlining or using annotations. To facilitate memory, I write down examples that I am familiar with next to the important points explained by the lecturer. I include additional explanations next to important points or concepts. I arrange the key words I have written down during the lecture into sentences or content that I understand’.

Organisation: ‘I organise the contents of my notes into an outline or chart. I integrate the contents of the textbooks and my notes, and then note the overall structure of the content. I use numbers to annotate the order or context of the contents of my notes. I read the relevant chapters in the textbooks, and then note the relationship between the main topics in my notes. I refer to the outline in the textbooks or handouts, and then reorganise the contents of my notes’.

Help-seeking: ‘I consult my classmates or the lecturer to confirm the meaning of the contents of my notes. I compare my notes with those of my classmates and add any main points that I may have left out into my notes. I consult my classmates or the lecturer to supplement any areas that I did not completely write down during the lecture. I consult my classmates or the lecturer to clarify any areas in my notes that I am still unclear about, and then make the necessary revisions’.

When answering questions regarding the scales, based on the course they took notes for most frequently (the one provided in the ‘basic information’ section), students were asked to consider the following question: To what extent do you agree that the way you had taken notes in that class complied with the descriptions given below? Respondents were asked to circle the corresponding number among the options. A 6-point Likert-type scale was used; each question had six options, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree).

Sample

A total of 1150 questionnaires were distributed and 1104 responses were collected, with a response rate of 96%. Among the responses, 14 respondents had an incomplete strategy scale (the students had no experience with note-taking in university), 3 respondents did not satisfy the criteria for sample selection (the respondents were graduate students) and 15 respondents included unreliable answers (the respondents selected the same option for all items, or selected options based on a fixed order). The above invalid responses were excluded from the samples, thus leaving 1072 valid responses for the analysis, with a valid response rate of 93%.

Among the valid respondents, 641 were females and 431 were males; 433 were freshmen, 243 were sophomore students, 128 were junior students and 268 were senior students; 588 majored in humanities or social studies and 484 majored in natural sciences. The average number of credits the students were required to earn in the semester was 19.5; the average number of courses they were required to take was 9.1; and the average number of courses in which they took notes was 5.8, thus indicating that the proportion of courses wherein the students took notes out of all courses in the semester was 63.7%.

The courses in which the students most frequently took notes, and that the students referred to the most when answering questions related to their note-taking strategies, are as follows (in order of proportion): compulsory courses from their own departments (58.9%), general education courses (17.5%), elective courses from their own departments (12%), courses from other departments (5.6%), common courses at the college (2.7%) and others (1.2%).

Measures

In the previous semester of the survey, students of the general education course classes from three universities were extracted as pre-test samples to test the scales and acquired 409 valid responses. Based on the answers provided by these students, item analyses were conducted for the in- and after-class note-taking strategies scales, respectively. The methods of comparison of extreme groups and item-total correlation were adopted to understand the discrimination and homogeneity of the items. In the comparison of extreme groups, the samples with the highest (the highest 27%) and lowest scores (the lowest 27%) from the total scores of the scale were selected and a t-test was performed on the scores for each item of the two groups. Items with statistically insignificant t values and with t values (critical ratio) smaller than 3 were removed from the scale. The item-total correlation method was then used to examine the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients (r) for the score of each item and the total score of the scale. Items with statistically insignificant r values and with r values smaller than 0.3 were removed from the scale.

Exploratory factor analyses were employed for the in- and after-class note-taking strategies scales, respectively. Factor analysis uses principle component analysis to extract factors, retaining factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and applies the varimax method for rotation. For the in-class note-taking strategies scale, five factors were extracted, namely, copying (using a verbatim, incremental method for note-taking), key point selection (selecting the main ideas for note-taking), elaboration (using information elaboration as a method for note-taking), organisation (improving the organisation of the information while taking notes) and comprehension-monitoring (planning, monitoring and correcting the note-taking process and its output). The extracted factors were able to explain 57.16% of the total variance. The scale had five subscales and contained 23 items: copying (6 items), key point selection (4 items), elaboration (3 items), organisation (4 items) and comprehension-monitoring (6 items). Cronbach’s alphas for subscales and total scales were as follows: copying (0.82), key point selection (0.69), elaboration (0.63), organisation (0.76), comprehension-monitoring (0.79) and total scale (0.87). The test–retest reliability coefficients for subscales and total scales (tested 5 weeks later) were as follows: copying (0.85), key point selection (0.50), elaboration (0.55), organisation (0.64), comprehension-monitoring (0.65) and total scale (0.74).

For the after-class note-taking strategies scale, three factors were extracted, namely, elaboration (using information elaboration as a method for note-taking), organisation (improving the organisation of the information during note-taking) and help-seeking (seeking assistance from classmates or teachers to help clarify, supplement and correct the content of the notes). The three factors were able to explain 64.75% of the total variance. The scale contained three subscales and included 14 items: elaboration (5 items), organisation (5 items) and help-seeking (4 items). Cronbach’s alphas for subscales and total scales were as follows: elaboration (0.86), organisation (0.86), help-seeking (0.82) and total scale (0.91). The test–retest reliability coefficients for subscales and total scales (tested 5 weeks later) were as follows: elaboration (0.69), organisation (0.55), help-seeking (0.79) and total scale (0.85).

Procedure

This study had only one measurement point and used an in-class survey method. After sampling the universities and classes, the researcher contacted the lecturers of the selected classes to discuss the execution details of the survey. If the lecturers agreed to assist, the survey was conducted as a group during class. It took 10–15 minutes to complete the questionnaire. A small gift of gratitude was distributed to students who completed and returned the questionnaire.

Data analysis

The SPSS statistical software package was used to archive data and undertake statistical analyses. To understand whether differences existed among the note-taking strategies adopted, two one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed for the in- and after-class strategies, respectively. To test whether the use of note-taking strategies varied according to the variables, that is, gender, year of study and field of major/discipline, four Hotelling’s T² tests (for gender and field of major/discipline; in- and after-class strategies) and two one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) (for year of study; in- and after-class strategies) were performed. If the Hotelling’s T² tests (or one-way MANOVA) reached significant level (p < 0.05), t-tests (or one-way ANOVA) with adjusted significance levels of 0.01 (0.05/5) and 0.017 (0.05/3) for each in- and after-class note-taking strategy, respectively, according to the Bonferroni correction, were performed to understand the differences between different groups. In addition, to understand the relationship between the use of in- and after-class note-taking strategies, a canonical correlation analysis was performed.

Results

Use of lecture note-taking strategies

The means (M) and standard deviations (SD) of the in-class note-taking strategies used were as follows: copying (M = 3.87, SD = 0.85), key point selection (M = 4.64, SD = 0.72), elaboration (M = 3.57, SD = 0.95), organisation (M = 3.97, SD = 0.89) and comprehension-monitoring (M = 4.09, SD = 0.81). The results showed that the differences between the five strategies were statistically significant (F(4, 1068) = 371.14, p < 0.001). The post hoc comparisons revealed that differences existed between each pair of strategies. Within these strategies, the most frequently used strategy was key point selection, followed by comprehension-monitoring, organisation and copying, in descending order, whereas elaboration was the least used.

The mean values and SD of the after-class note-taking strategies used were as follows: elaboration (M = 4.06, SD = 0.85), organisation (M = 3.76, SD = 0.94) and help-seeking (M = 3.97, SD = 1.02). The results showed that the differences were statistically significant (F(2, 1070) = 98.39, p < 0.001). The post hoc comparisons revealed that differences existed between each pair of strategies. Elaboration was most frequently used, followed by help-seeking; organisation was used least.

Use of lecture note-taking strategies by gender, year of study and field of major/discipline

Figures 1 to 3 show the profiles of in-class note-taking strategies by gender, year of study and field of major/discipline, respectively. The results showed that the use of in-class note-taking significantly differed, based on gender (Hotelling’s T² = 0.05, F(5, 1066) = 10.95, p < 0.001) and field of major/discipline (Hotelling’s T² = 0.01, F(5, 1066) = 2.35, p < 0.05). However, it did not significantly differ based on the year of study (Λ = 0.98, F(15, 2938) = 1.66, p > 0.05).

Figure 1.

Profiles of students’ in-class note-taking strategies by gender.

Figure 2.

Profiles of students’ in-class note-taking strategies by year of study.

Figure 3.

Profiles of students’ in-class note-taking strategies by field of major.

Male and female students were significantly different in their use of copying (t(1070) = 4.63, p < 0.01), key point selection (t(1070) = 4.05, p < 0.01), organisation (t(1070) = 6.08, p < 0.01) and comprehension-monitoring (t(1070) = 5.17, p < 0.01). Female students scored higher than male students in all four strategies. Students from different fields of major/disciplines showed significant differences in key point selection (t(1070) = 3.12, p < 0.01). Students in the humanities and social sciences scored higher than students in the natural sciences.

Figures 4 to 6 display the profiles of students’ after-class note-taking strategies by gender, year of study and field of major/discipline, respectively. The use of after-class note-taking strategies differed significantly by gender (Hotelling’s T² = 0.03, F(3, 1068) = 11.94, p < 0.001). However, it did not differ significantly by year of study (Λ = 0.99, F(9, 2594) = 1.84, p > 0.05) and field of major/discipline (Hotelling’s T² = 0.001, F(3, 1068) = 0.22, p > 0.05).

Figure 4.

Profiles of students’ after-class note-taking strategies by gender.

Figure 5.

Profiles of students’ after-class note-taking strategies by year of study.

Figure 6.

Profiles of students’ after-class note-taking strategies by field of major.

Male and female students were significantly different in their use of elaboration (t(1070) = 5.76, p < 0.017), organisation (t(1070) = 4.78, p < 0.017) and help-seeking (t(1070) = 3.43, p < 0.017). Female students scored higher than male students in all three strategies.

Relationship between the use of in-class note-taking strategies and after-class note-taking strategies

Table 1 summarises the canonical correlation analysis results of the use of in- and after-class note-taking strategies. There were three significant sets of canonical factors exist in two sets of variables. The three significant canonical correlation coefficients generated between in-class note-taking strategies (X) and after-class note-taking strategies (Y) reached significance at 0.79, 0.36 and 0.24, respectively. The first canonical variate χ₁ from the in-class note-taking strategies represents 62% of the total variance of the first canonical variate η₁ from the after-class note-taking strategies and vice versa. The first canonical variate χ₁ from the in-class note-taking strategies represents 47% of the total variance of the in-class note-taking strategies. The first canonical variate η₁ from the after-class note-taking strategies represents 71% of the total variance of the after-class note-taking strategies. Based on the index of redundancy, the in-class note-taking strategies can explain 44% of after-class note-taking strategies and the after-class note-taking strategies can explain 29% of in-class note-taking strategies through the first canonical variates (χ₁ and η₁). As seen by the first pair of canonical variables, the use of the five in-class strategies and the three after-class note-taking strategies can positively influence each other.

Table 1.

Summary of canonical correlation analysis between in-class and after-class note-taking strategies.

X (in-class)	χ ₁	χ ₂	χ ₃	Y (after-class)	η ₁	η ₂	η ₃
Copying	0.51	0.44	0.14	Elaboration	0.88	−0.11	−0.46
Key point selection	0.56	−0.12	−0.31	Organisation	0.86	−0.46	0.22
Elaboration	0.63	−0.25	−0.66	Help-seeking	0.78	0.55	0.31
Organisation	0.73	−0.60	0.28
Comprehension-monitoring	0.92	0.26	0.15
Proportion of variance	0.47	0.14	0.13	Proportion of variance	0.71	0.17	0.12
Redundancy	0.29	0.02	0.01	Redundancy	0.44	0.02	0.01
				ρ ²	0.62	0.13	0.06
				ρ	0.79***	0.36***	0.24***

***

p < 0.001.

Slight overlap was discovered in the second and third pairs of canonical variables – the degrees of redundancies were less than 5% – thus no further description will be provided.

Discussion

This study set off from the nature of learning strategies to understand the strategies adopted during the output process of lecture notes. The results showed that five note-taking strategies were employed during class. The most frequently employed strategy was key point selection, followed by comprehension-monitoring, organisation and copying, in descending order, with elaboration being the least used. Studies have suggested that with respect to in-class studying, the listening speed of students may catch up to the speech tempo of lecturers. However, the handwriting speed of students may not keep up with the tempo, owing to the limit of a student’s physiological equipment, thus making it difficult for students to write down complete class notes (Bui and Myerson, 2014; Luo et al., 2016; Peverly et al., 2013). Therefore, it was not surprising to find that key point selection was the most common strategy adopted by students. Because the handwriting speed is not faster than that of listening, students’ urgent need was to extract key points under time restrictions. Students may refer to handouts or learning materials and selectively record key points.

In addition, according to the information processing theory, the focus of copying is transcription; however, this is the least effective note-taking strategy (Kiewra et al., 1991) because thinking may not occur and both internal and external connections fall short of the message (Mayer, 1988). This study found that compared to copying, students performed better at the other three strategies, namely, key point selection (selecting the primary ideas for note-taking), comprehension-monitoring (checking omissions, readability, supplements and corrections) and organisation (outlining and classifying the notes). However, this study also found that elaboration was the least used strategy for students’ in-class note-taking. The reason may be that elaboration emphasises the creation of learning content and formation of external connections with existing knowledge, which includes considering relevant messages, questions and analogies; providing examples; and offering one’s own opinions. Compared to other strategies, elaboration requires more time to perform, thus making it difficult for students to undertake these actions in the limited class time.

Furthermore, this study is consistent with previous studies because it found that students would continue employing strategies to finish their notes after class (Bonner and Holliday, 2006; Kiewra and Dubois, 1998; Pauk, 2001; Van Meter et al., 1994). The after-class note-taking strategies by students, in descending order, included elaboration, help-seeking and organisation. It is noteworthy that elaboration, the least used strategy during class, was the most frequently used strategy in after-class note-taking. As stated above, it is posited that students have sufficient time to perform a thorough elaboration after class. The result that students rarely adopted organisation is consistent with that of Chen (2013), who found that few students practised the reorganisation of in-class notes. The reason may be that students had already undertaken the outlining or classifying of their notes in class and thus believed they did not need to work on organisation after class. Moreover, help-seeking is a strategy that is encouraged in learning activities (Alexander, 2006; Schunk, 2012). The study results support that students may consult their lecturers or classmates, compare their notes with others and perform necessary adjustments or include additional content to notes after class (Chen, 2013; Kiewra and Dubois, 1998; Pauk, 2001).

In addition to the observation of students’ overall note-taking strategies, this study also found that student’s lecture note-taking strategies differed based on gender and field of major/discipline. In line with the results of studies on learning strategies that found students’ use of learning strategies differ based on gender (Kesici et al., 2009; Lee, 2002; Rodarte-Luna and Sherry, 2008; Virtanen and Nevgi, 2010) and academic discipline (Vanderstoep et al., 1996; Virtanen and Nevgi, 2010), the results showed that except for in-class elaboration, females were increasingly likely to use the other four in-class note-taking strategies and three after-class note-taking strategies compared with males, thereby indicating that females appeared to adopt more note-taking strategies compared with males. Moreover, this study also found that the use of strategies varied among students from different fields of major/discipline. Compared with students majoring in the natural sciences, those majoring in humanities or social sciences were more likely to use key point selection during class, which may be related to the content of academic subjects. In comparison with subjects in natural sciences, those in humanities or social sciences placed greater emphasis on the overall context during lectures, thus requiring students to allocate more time and effort to identify key ideas. However, this study did not find that the use of note-taking strategies varied based on year of study. Studies that have suggested a likely discrepancy in adopting note-taking strategies, with relation to the increase of academic experience, primarily focused on changes in the use of such strategies alongside the progression of the course, during a specific semester (Bonner and Holliday, 2006; Van Meter et al., 1994). However, the study described here found no significant differences in the use of strategies from different year groups. These findings suggest that the academic experience that correlated to changes in note-taking strategies did not involve the general academic experience accumulated through the progression of academic years, but rather the specific academic experience accumulated through the progression of a given course in each semester.

The study showed that students’ in-class note-taking strategies were correlated with their after-class note-taking strategies. A correlation was found between students’ action concerning five in-class note-taking strategies and their action concerning three after-class note-taking strategies. Because in-class notes serve as the subject of after-class note-taking strategies (Kiewra and Dubois, 1998; Pauk, 2001), after-class note-taking strategies will inevitably be affected if students used certain strategies while performing in-class note-taking. This correlation deserves our attention from a reverse perspective because if students complete their notes after class by using various strategies, their in-class note-taking strategies may be affected. In addition to the likely two-way causal relationship between in- and after-class note-taking, influence from other factors, such as intrinsic motivation, should not be excluded because they may affect the adoption of both in- and after-class note-taking strategies, thereby causing a correlation between the two types of strategies.

This study has some limitations. The participants were from only one country/context and limited to only those in general education classes. Because the number of students differed in terms of gender, years of study and field of major, this resulted in an unbalanced number of respondents in the sampling. In addition, the instrument had a limitation in terms of strategies which were included that could be adopted by students for lecture note-taking. Therefore, future studies must focus on students from different cultures/contexts because note-taking behaviours may differ, based on the culture/context. Further studies are needed which examine other strategies and the consequences of students adopting lecture note-taking strategies, particularly its relationships with the quality of notes and academic performance, or based on the instrument, to develop a more extensive tool for lecture note-taking strategies.

The results of this study have both academic and practical implications. From an academic perspective, this study examined more note-taking strategies than had been explored in previous studies. It also looked at both in-class and after-class strategies at the same time, again, something that had not been explored in earlier studies on note-taking. It is therefore the case that the results described in this study provide a more comprehensive vision of students’ lecture note-taking strategies. From a practical perspective, the results can serve as a reference for instructors, who may be able to interpret students adopting lecture note-taking strategies from a general perspective and based on factors such as gender, year of study and field of major/discipline. Gender and field of major/discipline are the factors to consider when intervening in students’ note-taking strategies through teaching activities. Moreover, based on the finding that in- and after-class note-taking strategies can affect each other, instructors can enhance students’ use of in-class (or after-class) note-taking strategies by intervening in their uses of after-class (or in-class) note-taking strategies.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: ‘This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST 100-2410-H-153-001)’.

ORCID iD

Pin-Hwa Chen

Author biography

Pin-Hwa Chen is a Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling at the National Pingtung University, Taiwan. Her research interests are learning strategies, motivation and self-regulated learning. Address: Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Pingtung University, No. 4-18 Mingsheng Rd., Pingtung City 90003, Taiwan. [email: phchen@mail.nptu.edu.tw]

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