Essay on Note-Taking in Lectures: Investigating Student Perspectives

Notes taken during lectures is one approach to learning that has been extensively investigated to establish its outcomes in academic situations. Particularly, Badger et al., (2001, p. 407) have emphasized on the subject by reviewing the various perceptions by students regarding note-taking. In a study titled, "Note-perfect: an investigation of how students view taking notes in lectures," the authors sought to investigate the learning approach by attempting to understand why should students take notes? Which techniques are used in the process" and what happens afterward these notes are recorded? They agreed that understanding the students' conceptualisation of the process could help enrich academic literacy. Ideally, the aim of note-taking is for students to recall lectures as much as possible. The method helps in achieving this goal as it involves some sort of a review process. Another reason for taking notes is that it helps with examinations and assignments besides being a more general sense of the education system (Bader, et al., 2001).

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Bader et al. (2001) study gave little details on how the approach leads to the successful conceptualisation of the learning process. Peverly and cohort (2007, p. 167) attested to this criticism by mentioning that there is scarce knowledge on the cognitive process involved in note-taking. According to the authors, current perspectives of cognitive processing implies that effectively performing in a skill often depends on the parallel execution of other skill-specific processes competing for space in the working memory system. This explanation implies that lower-level cognitive skills such as word recognition useful in the note-taking process should be exercised within acceptable limits so that higher-level cognitive abilities such as language ability may occur to produce positive learning outcomes which for many learning cases refer to good comprehension.

Still, it is important to note that individual differences in working memory capacity may result in variations in the effective execution of its processes. These interindividual variations in working memory correlate to a broad spectrum of skills such as writing and abilities such as verbal prowess. Consequently, it implies that greater capacity of working memory results in greater efficiency in monitoring or processing of higher-level information necessary in successful learning outcomes, and limited ability in this context might greatly impede positive learning CITATION Pev07 \l 1033 (Peverly, et al., 2007). In numerous instances, lectures are dictated and students are expected to relate the verbally-relayed information in note-taking processes. This process, however, is a cognitively-demanding task that involves students holding information in verbal working memory (VWM), constructing important thematic units of the same, and transcribing the constructed units before forgetting while seeking to maintain continuity of the lecture at the same time (Kiewra & Benton, 1988; Kobayashi, 2005, as cited in Peverly, et al., 2007).

Peverly and the team (2007) went farther with their experiment to investigate their assumption that the quality of notes taken as determined by transcription fluency, VWM, and the ability to recognize major thoughts communicated by the lecturer to be a momentous forecast of test performance. Transcription fluency emerged as the sole predictor of notes quality, which in turn significantly predicted test performance. It also emerged that students must showcase cognitive resources i.e. strategies, knowledge and executive monitoring to enable them to engage, process, and interpret VWM information, which capacity is necessary to process information effectively.

Peverly and cohort (2007) study went beyond to illustrate the various cognitive processes involved in lecture note-taking, and how the various aspects of the process are managed to result in successful outcomes. They also illustrated that varying capacities of these cognitive aspects often lead to different outcomes among the students who must exhibit high VWM capacities to adequately process information. However, their study, in the context of this piece, is limited as it failed to mention other factors other than the cognitive-based process, involved in notes taking and present varying degrees of outcomes. In numerous institutions of higher learning, laptops are common sights in classrooms during lectures. As was noted by Ravizza et al., (2017, p. 171), many institutions now require students with this gadgets and recommend that they bring them into classrooms as many lecturers have developed the tendency of posting lecture slides on various portals and encourage students to refer to them during the class session. Although such technology offers valuable tools for learning, research has established that they present a significant degree of distracting temptation that might affect learning outcomes when used for non-class activities during class hours (Ravizza, et al., 2017).

In an experiment of 107 participants, the researchers sought to investigate how engaging in internet use for non-core activities affected class performance. Students brought their personal computers to class and connected to the internet via a proxy server which was provided. They were then requested to engage in the normal use of these devices during the class session. Information was drawn from the proxy server throughout fifteen lectures with each lasting for 1 hour 50 minutes. Results from this study revealed that the students spent at least 37 minutes in session to browse the internet for non-academic sites. Social media was the most accessed sites followed by access to e-mails and watching videos. Other non-class related activities included chatting, reading news, and playing games.

From the survey, it was evident that the internet use offered distraction to the learning process when students utilized the resource for non-academic purposes. However, the authors considered other factors including their intelligence, interests in the course material, and motivation to succeed in the course to justify the relationship between internet and classroom performance. From the results, non-academic browsing remained rampant although it was contrariwise relationship to performance in final examinations. This connection was prevalent irrespective of determination to succeed, intelligence, and the level of interest exhibited towards the course.

Generally, the study showed the relationships between internet use and non-academic performance while giving relationships to other aspects such as motivation, interests, and intelligence. The effect of the internet for non-academic purposes was minimal. However, the study was limited in scope, only analyzing students enrolled in a psychology class. This aspect was a limitation as the findings cannot be generalized to other disciplines for instance in medicine and computer science classes where ultimate concentration is required.

A more extensive review of how computer gadgets affected learning considering note-taking was done in the research by Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Titled, "The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard," the researchers analyzed the advantages of longhand writing over typing on a keyboard while taking notes. The authors held the hypothesis that while laptops are increasingly becoming common in note-taking, their use may be impairing to learning resulting in shallower processing of information even when used for academic purposes only.

In three experiments, the researchers noted students who took notes on laptops wrote more words of the lecture than those who used the traditional longhand option. Besides, students in the former group performed poorly than their counterparts who opted for longhand note-taking option CITATION Mue18 \l 1033 (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2018). The study also showed that students who take notes on laptops tend to transcribe lecture verbatim instead of processing such information and paraphrasing in individual words, thus detrimental to learning outcomes CITATION Mue18 \l 1033 (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2018)While the study by Ravizza, et al., (2017) only showed that laptops and internet can distract students, the current study was more detailed in showing the disadvantages to learning outcomes due to the variations in note-taking behavior between laptop users and those who resort to the traditional longhand methods.

The research by Mueller & Oppenheimer, (2018) had the limitation of little previous studies on supporting their research topic. Even they recognized that the study was one of its kind to show the various relationships presented in their experiments (1166), therefore, making their conclusions to be easily dismissed as to be lacking evidence basis.

Conclusion

In general discussion, it is evident that note-taking is effective in achieving positive learning outcomes for many students in the current education system. Still, the process demands a balance between different factors that compete for the attention of the learner. Using cognitive processing theory, Peverly and the team,(2007) states that note-taking is a complex process requiring students to receive information, interpret and record it in meaningful ways that would benefit their future reference. In considering the various techniques in note-taking, use of laptops has become rampant however, research has established that these devices offer distraction, as well result to a verbatim transcription of lectures which may be to be detrimental to learning outcomes (Ravizza, et al, 2017; Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2018).

References

Bader, R., White, G., Sutherland, P., & Haggis, T. (2001). Note-perfect: an investigation of how students view taking notes in lectures. Berlin: Elsevier Science Limited.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2018). Corrigendum: The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantaged of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking. Association for Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. doi:10.1177/0956797614524581

Peverly, S. T., Ramaswamy, V., Brown, C., Sumowski, J., Alidoost, M., & Garner, J. (2007). What Predicts Skill in Lecture Note-Taking? Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(1), 167-180. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.99.1.167

Ravizza, S. M., Uitvlugt, M. G., & Fenn, K. M. (2017). Logged In and Zoned Out: How Laptop Internet Use Related to Classroom Learning. Association of Psychological Science, 28(2), 171-180. doi:10.1177/0956797616677314