My argument on why the conventional wisdom on note-taking - particularly during lectures - is wrong.
00:00 Introduction
1:25 Does the writing process help us remember what we heard?
1:44 Does reviewing notes later help us remember?
2:07 The missing piece.
2:55 An alternative method.
3:56 Is taking verbatim notes useful?
5:02 On paying attention to the right things.
5:46 Taking notes during vs after a lecture
6:46 My recommended practice
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References:
A lot of the recent research on note-taking has been on whether taking hand-written notes or laptop notes are superior. The evidence for one being better than the other is a bit "meh". As mentioned, the idea that "verbatim notes are bad" seems less true for laptop note-takers.
The opening quote comes from:
Flanigan, A. E., & Titsworth, S. (2020). The impact of digital distraction on lecture note taking and student learning. Instructional Science, 48(5), 495-524. [ Ссылка ]
The second quote comes from:
Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. A. (2019). How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014). Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), 753-780. [ Ссылка ]
Experiment 2, here, is also the one that I relate where "no note-taking" performed just as well as any of the note-taking conditions on immediate tests. It's unclear to me why they didn't also use a delayed measure with the no note-taking group. Also, looking at tables 3 and 4, you can see that if students took notes on material germane to the test, then they did well (my second concluding point).
Another recent piece is here:
Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., Flanigan, A. E., & Peteranetz, M. S. (2018). Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement. Instructional Science, 46(6), 947-971. [ Ссылка ].
The introduction is a fair summary of the mixed evidence on the encoding hypothesis. Unfortunately, they only used immediate tests here, but there's some interesting material on the relative benefits of hand-written vs laptop notes.
Below is a more direct test of my suggested approach. The results? Note-taking beats testing on immediate tests, but in two weeks testing wins. Testing even beats note-taking + review, suggesting that the storage function of notes is not particularly strong.
Rummer, R., Schweppe, J., Gerst, K., & Wagner, S. (2017). Is testing a more effective learning strategy than note-taking?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 23(3), 293. [ Ссылка ]
And here is another that finds no difference, even though students who took notes during the lecture took more relevant notes than those who took notes after the lecture.
Haynes, J. M., McCarley, N. G., & Williams, J. L. (2015). An analysis of notes taken during and after a lecture presentation. North American Journal of Psychology, 17(1). [ Ссылка ]
And another old piece, same thing, no difference (only the measures weren't great).
Eisner, S., & Rohde, K. (1959). Note taking during or after the lecture. Journal of Educational Psychology, 50(6), 301–304. [ Ссылка ]
Certainly students seem to believe that note-taking during lectures improves learning outcomes:
Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Blasiman, R., & Hollis, R. B. (2019). Note-taking habits of 21st century college students: implications for student learning, memory, and achievement. Memory, 27(6), 807-819. [ Ссылка ]
On the superiority of free recall / retrieval practice / testing, over re-study, see:
Roediger III, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory: Basic research and implications for educational practice. Perspectives on psychological science, 1(3), 181-210. [ Ссылка ]
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. science, 319(5865), 966-968. [ Ссылка ]
Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger III, H. L. (2007). Repeated retrieval during learning is the key to long-term retention. Journal of memory and language, 57(2), 151-162. [ Ссылка ]
