Notetaking in the lecture theatre - examining the impacts of popular encoding strategies

Abstract

Lecture slide handout annotation has largely replaced the once prevalent practice of longhand notetaking. What impact has this had on student learning? In Experiment 1, students viewed two lectures, one presented fluently and the other disfluently, whilst either observing without making any form of notes, annotating handouts, taking notes for themselves or taking notes for a friend before immediate and delayed testing. Students in both notetaking groups out-performed observers and annotators, but there was no difference in performance between the latter groups. This learning benefit from notetaking was not reflected in confidence, suggesting that students are metacognitively unaware of it. In Experiment 2, students viewed two lectures, each consisting of material pertaining to both concepts and facts. One lecture was presented at a regular pace and the other at a faster pace. As with Experiment 1, students who made longhand notes performed better across all of the above conditions than observers and annotators, who did not differ from each other in terms of test scores. These findings suggest that notetaking is more beneficial for memory than lecture slide handout annotation across a wide range of lecture scenarios over both short and long-­term periods.

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ORCID for Philip Higham: orcid.org/0000-0001-6087-7224

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