When learners highlight or tag content, they metacognitively monitor information to select and mark it. From a levels-of-processing framework, standards used in metacognitive monitoring could affect learning. We examined effects on recall and transfer of different metacognitive standards -- free highlighting expressing a generic…

This study examined mobile phone use in the classroom by using an experimental design to study how message content (related or unrelated to class lecture) and message creation (responding to or creating a message) impact student learning. Participants in eight experimental groups and a control group watched a video lecture, took notes, and…

The usefulness of taking notes to enhance recall was assessed, based on reviewing the research literature using the techniques of meta-analysis. Meta-analysis allows for both the computation of the strength of an effect within studies and the determination of mean effect sizes averaged across related studies. Fourteen studies that maintained…

A study of 82 Canadian college freshmen investigated working memory, verbal ability, and prior knowledge as predictors of quality of students' lecture notes, lecture summaries, and content recall. Students with higher working memory benefitted more from listening to the lecture than from listening and taking notes. Quality of summaries predicted…

This study examined the effects of episodic-mapping, traditional notetaking, and rereading on eighth-grade students' recall of historical text. Episodic-maps are a kind of notetaking procedure that requires students to represent ideas from a text in the form of a graphic diagram. As predicted, both episodic-mapping and traditional notetaking…

Recall data from eight eleventh-grade students were analyzed to determine the effects of writing tasks on recall of content and relationship units at three levels of importance in the content structure of 21 prose passages. The data were colelcted as part of an earlier study of the effects of three writing tasks (notetaking, answering study…

Three variables (verbal aptitude, listening ability, and notetaking) that may mediate how much college students learn from a lecture were studied. Verbal aptitude was operationalized as a Verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test (VSAT) score. Listening ability was measured as the score on an auditory short-term memory task, using the serial running memory…

Since the precise nature of the effects of notetaking encoding has not been clearly specified, a study involving 111 suburban seventh graders (southeastern Idaho) explored the differential effects of traditional notetaking and of episodic organizers (a type of semantic web or map) on the encoding of complex narrative passages. Subjects were…

A study compared the effect of two different lecture pause procedures (pauses used for reflection and notetaking; pauses used for discussion) on the recall and note completeness of 27 college students with learning disabilities. Results show independent reflection meant fewer ideas partially recorded in notes, but otherwise no significant…

Free recall and cued recognition performance were studied in 53 field independent and 55 field dependent undergraduate education majors who were with or without structure at the time of learning and at the time of recall. Results indicated that field dependent learners recalled more of the textual material when provided with structure during both…

Reviews results of an experiment comparing the comprehension and recall of four groups: those who watched a videotape without taking notes; those who took notes while watching; those who took notes on questions in advance; those who orally replied to questions while watching. Comprehension was higher in the interactive groups. (MJP)

Discussion of the functions of note-taking and reviewing notes in the learning process highlights two studies of undergraduates that were conducted with three treatment groups: (1) note-taking only; (2) note-taking and review; and (3) review only with borrowed notes. One study involved learning from a videotaped lecture, and one from a printed…

Investigates the impact and relationship of notetaking techniques, notetaking functions, and measures of working memory on learning in an introductory college economics course. Compares conventional (taking notes in the customary fashion) with the outline method (recording notes in spaces on an instructor-provided outline). Includes suggestions…