Note-Taking, Individual Differences, and Memory for ...€¦ · NOTE-TAKING AND MEMORY 523 encoding when the presentation rate is fast and the informational density high. In these

Journal of Educational Psychology1985, Vol. 77, No. 5,522-532

Copyright 1985 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-0663/85/$00.75

Note-Taking, Individual Differences,and Memory for Lecture InformationGilles O. Einstein, Joy Morris, and Susan Smith

Furman University

Two experiments were performed to examine (a) the encoding function ofnote-taking and (b) processing differences between successful and less success-ful students in lecture situations. In the first experiment, subjects either tooknotes or listened during a lecture. Different memory patterns were found forthese two groups, with note-takers recalling many more high-importance prop-ositions than low-importance propositions and non-note-takers recalling anequal number of high- and low-importance propositions. These results sug-gested that note-taking enhances organizational processing of lecture informa-tion. In the second experiment, the notes and recall of successful and lesssuccessful students were compared. Successful students recalled more of themost important propositions, but these two groups of students did not differ intheir recall of less important propositions. For both groups of students, recallcontent was closely related to the content of the notes, with successful studentsrecording more high-importance propositions in their notes. Also, successfuland less successful students were quite similar in their note-taking styles andthe degree to which they benefited from reviewing their notes. Thus, thememory difference between these two groups of students was interpreted to bethe result of factors occurring during note-taking, with successful studentsengaging in greater integrative processing.

Because the lecture method is often usedin teaching, any procedures that clarify theeffectiveness of note-taking are likely tohave important implications for classroomlearners. DiVesta and Gray (1972) distin-guished between two possible functions ofnote-taking—storage and encoding. Ac-cording to the storage function hypothesis,note-taking facilitates retention by provid-ing students with a form of external storagethat can then be used for review. Testingof the external function of note-taking re-quires comparisons of students who are al-lowed to review their notes with studentswho are not allowed to review their notes.Whereas some researchers (e.g., Carter &Van Matre, 1975) have claimed that exter-nal storage is the major benefit of note-taking, others have argued that note-taking

This research was supported by a Research and Pro-fessional Growth Grant from Furman University.

We are indebted to Lib Nanney for her assistancethroughout manuscript preparation. Also, we wouldlike to thank Mark McDaniel and two anonymousreviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version ofthe manuscript.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Gilles O.Einstein, Department of Psychology, Furman Univer-sity, Greenville, South Carolina 29613.

also affects how information is encoded(e.g., Peper & Mayer, 1978). The majorpoint of the encoding function hypothesis isthat note-taking leads to activities duringlearning that are beneficial to memoryand/or transfer. Compared with merelylistening to a lecture, note-taking may en-courage increased attention, more elabo-rate processing of individual ideas, and/orgreater organization of the lecture material.If note-taking serves a useful encodingfunction, then note-takers and non-note-takers should differ in learning outcomes,even when they are not allowed to reviewtheir notes. Despite much research on theencoding function of note-taking in recentyears, the literature has not yielded consis-tent results. Some investigators havefound that note-taking interferes withlearning (Aiken, Thomas, & Shennum,1975) in some situations, others have foundthat note-taking has no effect on perfor-mance (Carter & Van Matre, 1975; Fisher &Harris, 1974), and still others have foundthat note-taking improves memory for lec-ture material (DiVesta & Gray, 1972; Peper& Mayer, 1978). According to Cook andMayer's (1983) review of the literature, itappears that note-taking hinders effective

522

NOTE-TAKING AND MEMORY 523

encoding when the presentation rate is fastand the informational density high. Inthese cases, the act of note-taking competeswith the attentional resources necessary toprocess the lecture. With more moderatepresentation rates or self-paced presenta-tion methods, note-taking has often beenfound to have a positive effect on learning.

Although note-taking appears to en-hance the encoding of new material inmany situations, no general agreement ex-ists on the specific performance measuresthat are affected by note-taking or on thetheoretical mechanisms underlying thebeneficial effects of note-taking.

According to Peper and Mayer (1978),the specific theories that have been devel-oped to account for the effects of note-tak-ing can broadly be classified as either quan-titative or qualitative theories. The majorpoint of the quantitative views is that note-taking mainly affects how much informa-tion is encoded. For example, note-takingmay be effective because it increases sub-jects* overall level of attention or effort.Within this view, note-taking should leadto increased levels of recall for all types ofinformation, and subjects who take morenotes should recall more. It is difficult toevaluate this position directly because re-searchers in the area have typically used atotal recall score as their sole dependentmeasure. Despite this problem, the resultsof studies showing that note-taking pro-duces higher overall levels of recall (Di-Vesta & Gray, 1972) and that recall is posi-tively related to the number of ideas includ-ed in the notes (Fisher & Harris, 1974;Howe, 1970) are consistent with the quanti-tative view.

On the other hand, qualitative theoriespropose that note-taking increases recall byaffecting the nature of processing. Accord-ing to this view, note-taking forces studentsto engage in processing that is differentfrom normal listening—such as relating theideas to one another and/or integrating theinformation with one's existing knowledge.Thus, note-takers should differ from non-note-takers primarily in what is encodedand remembered.

Peper & Mayer (1978) provided supportfor this position. They had subjects eithertake notes or listen to a short videotaped

lecture on computer programming andfound that note-taking led to an increase inrecall of ideas concerning the format ofFORTRAN statements and ideas related tothe structure of computers. Note-takersand non-note-takers did not differ in theirrecall of technical details. Note-takersalso performed better than did non-note-takers on far transfer problems, which re-quired general conceptual information tosolve. According to Peper and Mayer(1978), note-taking primarily encouragesdeeper comprehension and organization ofincoming information, not the more com-plete encoding of all types of propositionsin the lecture.

One purpose of the present studies was totest directly the quantitative and qualita-tive views described above by examiningthe effects of note-taking on the recall ofpropositions varying in their importance tothe lecture. According to the quantitativehypothesis, note-taking should enhancememory for all types of propositions, re-gardless of their importance to the theme ofthe lecture. By contrast, if note-taking en-courages subjects to increase their organi-zation or structuring of a lecture (qualita-tive view), then it should primarily increaserecall for the most important propositionsin the lecture (Cook & Mayer, 1983; Peper& Mayer, 1978). This latter prediction isbased on research showing that a stronglevels effect (better recall of high-impor-tance compared with low-importance prop-ositions) is observed under conditions thatmaximize subjects' opportunities to orga-nize learning material (e.g., Einstein,McDaniel, Bowers, & Stevens, 1984).

We were particularly interested in as-sessing memory of the lecture because re-cently it has been suggested that note-tak-ing "may have facilitative effects only ontransfer items, not on retention" (Barnett,DiVesta, & Rogozinski, 1981, p. 192). Fewexperiments, however, have used anythingother than overall recall, cued recall, or rec-ognition scores to evaluate the effectivenessof note-taking. As Cook and Mayer (1983)pointed out, more research is needed ondependent measures that are sensitive tonote-taking strategies. Also, research withother mathemagenic activities, such as gen-erating questions, has shown that these ac-

524 G. EINSTEIN, J. MORRIS, AND S. SMITH

tivities may have selective effects on reten-tion (Frase, 1975).

Another goal of the present experimentswas to examine the content of subjects'notes and the relation between this contentand recall. Although several studies haveshown that subjects tend to recall whatthey put in their notes (Aiken et al.} 1975;Bretzing & Kulhavy, 1981), little researchexists on the type of information that isrecorded in the notes.

Experiment 1

The first experiment was performed toinvestigate whether note-taking influencesthe type of information recalled from a lec-ture. Subjects either took notes or listenedduring the presentation of a videotaped lec-ture and later were asked to recall the lec-ture. Because subjects were not given theopportunity to review their notes, thisstudy examined only the encoding functionof note-taking. A major feature of the pre-sent study was that the propositions in thelecture were rated for their importance tothe lecture. Thus, the predictions of thequantitative and qualitative theories couldbe directly compared.

Method

Subjects and Design

Twenty-four subjects were randomly assigned toeach of two groups that differed in terras of whetherthey were asked to take notes or listen during thepresentation of the lecture. Subjects participated inthe experiment to fulfill a requirement of their intro-ductory psychology course.

Materials

All students were presented with the same 10-minvideotaped lecture on the history of individual differ-ences. The lecture contained many statements aboutthe lives of particular people (Darwin, Galton, Cattell,Binet), their involvement in important events, thecauses and consequences of these events, and the ef-fects of these developments on the history of individ-ual differences. The lecture was excerpted from onethat is used in an upper-level course, and our assump-tion was that it was unfamiliar to all of the subjects.To simulate a typical classroom lecture, the informa-tion was presented in the lecturer's normal teachingstyle.

Procedure

All subjects participated in a single session lastingapproximately 45 min and were tested in small groupsranging from three to four. All subjects were told theywere participating in an experiment concerning theeffectiveness of various strategies on lecture compre-hension and that they would be asked to rate thelecture for difficulty of comprehension. They werethen read instructions appropriate to their experimen-tal treatment. Subjects were not told about the mem-ory test. Subjects in the note-taking condition weregiven several sheets of paper and were instructed totake notes in their normal style during the lecture.Subjects in the listening-only condition were instruct-ed not to take notes but to listen carefully to thelecture. Both groups were told to pay close attentionto the lecture and to try to comprehend it.

Following the lecture, all subjects were instructed torate their comprehension of the lecture on a 7-pointscale ranging from very easy to comprehend (1) tovery difficult to comprehend (7). Subjects were thengiven 10 min to write down everything that they couldremember from the lecture.

Results and Discussion

Unless otherwise indicated, the rejectionlevel for all analyses was set at .05. Theanalysis of comprehension ratings revealedthat both groups thought the lecture wasfairly easy to comprehend, and there was noreliable difference between the ratings ofthe note-taking, (M = 2.29) and listening-only (M = 2.46) conditions, F < 1.

Recall

To examine recall, the lecture was ana-lyzed into 126 propositions using a methodapproximating Kintsch's (1974) analysis oftext meaning. Thirty-two recall protocolswere randomly selected and initially scoredby two reviewers for the number of proposi-tions recalled. The scores produced bythese two individuals were highly correlat-ed (r = .88), so the rest of the protocols werescored by one of the reviewers. An initialanalysis was performed on total recall. Al-though the note-taking group (M = 18.71)recalled more propositions than did the lis-tening-only group (M = 15.67), this differ-ence was not reliable, F(lt 46) = 2.63,MSe = 42.26.

To determine the effects of note-takingon the encoding of the structure of the lec-ture, a separate group of 20 subjects wasasked to rate the importance of each propo-


IMPORTANCE L £ V a

Figure J. Mean number of high-, medium-, and low-importance propositions recalled by subjects in thenote-taking and listening-only conditions.

sition to the lecture. These subjects weregiven typed versions of the lecture, told toread it until they fully understood it, andthen to rate the importance of each propo-sition on a 5-point scale ranging from high-ly important (1) to unimportant (5).From these ratings, three importance levelswere established: high, medium, and low.The high-importance propositions were the28 with the highest mean ratings, medium-importance propositions were the 28 withmean ratings closest to the median, and thelow-importance propositions were the 28with the lowest mean ratings. Recall wasevaluated as a function of these categories,and the results are present in Figure 1.

An analysis of these data indicated thatthere was no significant difference betweenthe listening-only and note-taking groupson overall recall, F < 1. There was, howev-er, a significant effect for the importancelevel variable, F(2,92) = 23.66, MSe = 4.61,and a reliable interaction between thetreatment conditions and the importancelevel variable, F(2, 92) = 8.18, MS* = 4.61.A Newman-Keuls analysis was performedto determine at which levels of importancethe note-taking and listening-only groupsdiffered. This analysis revealed that note-takers recalled more high-importancepropositions than did listening-only sub-jects but that the two groups did not differreliably in their recall of medium- and low-importance propositions. Although recallof all types of propositions was quite low(between 11% and 24%), floor effects proba-bly did not hinder the detection of impor-

tant recall differences because the analysiswas sensitive enough to detect the maineffect of importance level and the interac-tion effect In fact, recall of low-impor-tance propositions was marginally higher(.05 < p < .10) for non-note-takers. Foreach group, a linear trend analysis was per-formed to determine the degree to whichsubjects recalled the high-importancepropositions more than the low-importancepropositions (levels effect). As evident inFigure 1, there was a reliable linear trend inthe note-taking condition, F{1, 92) = 36.62,MSe = 4-611, but there was no linear trendin the listening-only condition, F < 1.

Thus it appears that note-taking doesnot improve the recall of all propositionsbut only of the high-importance proposi-tions. Further, recall was clearly related tothe importance level of the propositions inthe note-taking condition and was relative-ly independent of the importance level ofthe propositions in the listening-only con-dition. The different recall patterns ex-hibited by note-takers and non-note-takersindicate that note-taking serves an impor-tant encoding function, and the results areconsistent with the predictions of the quali-tative theory of note-taking.

Note Content and Relation to Recall

To explore the effects of note-taking onmemory, the number and types of proposi-tions in the notes of the 24 subjects in thenote-taking group were tabulated. As inrecall, the importance of the propositionsstrongly predicted their inclusion in thenotes, F(2, 46) = 135.66, MSe = 4.68. ANewman-Keuls analysis revealed that sub-jects recorded more high-importance prop-ositions (M = 12.29) than medium-impor-tance propositions (M = 5.83) in their notesand more medium-importance proposi-tions than low-importance propositions(M = 2.13).

Consistent with previous research (Aikenet al., 1975; Bretzing & Kulhavy, 1981), ananalysis of the correspondence between thenotes and recall revealed that subjectstended to recall the information in theirnotes. Subjects recalled 44% of the propo-sitions that appeared in their notes andonly 6% of the propositions that were not in


their notes, F[lf 23) = 90.67, MS* =.06, andthese percentages were roughly equalacross all importance levels. In summary,subjects tended to recall the propositions intheir notes. Consequently, the greater re-call of the high-importance propositionswas due mainly to the disproportionatelylarge number of high-importance proposi-tions in the notes and not to a greater prob-ability of recalling the most importantpropositions.

Past researchers (e.g., Howe, 1970) haveargued that note-taking styles are relatedto recall. To examine this possibility, anefficiency measure (the average number ofwords used to express an idea in the notes)and a synonym score (the percentage ofsynonyms in the notes) were tabulated foreach subject. No consistent or reliable re-lations were found between these measuresand both the number of propositions re-corded in the notes and the number ofpropositions recalled. Thus recall was re-lated to the content of the notes more thanto the style of note-taking.

Experiment 2

Given the importance of the encodingfunction of note-taking, Experiment 2 wasperformed to investigate processing differ-ences between effective and less effectivelearners. Recent research in individualdifferences has proven very useful for iden-tifying cognitive structures and processesthat mediate differences in performanceand for suggesting appropriate methods ofremediation. Much of the research indi-cates that poor learners use less effectiveprocessing strategies, often because ofmetacognitive considerations. For exam-ple, Stein et al. (1982) found that academi-cally successful fifth graders rememberedmore information than did less successfulfifth graders, and this was related to theirgeneration of precise elaborations duringthe reading of sentences. The successfulstudents were more likely to spontaneouslyproduce elaborations that made relationsbetween the concepts in the sentences lessarbitrary. In the present context, the indi-vidual differences approach seemed partic-ularly promising for (a) further exploringthe cognitive activities involved in note-

taking and remembering lecture informa-tion and (b) identifying processing differ-ences between successful and less success-ful students.

Whereas previous research has shownthat high-ability subjects outperform low-ability subjects (under note-taking and lis-tening-only conditions) on transfer tasks(Peper & Mayer, 1978) and comprehensiontests (McClendon, 1958), the cognitive ac-tivities that are related to these perfor-mance differences have not been clearly es-tablished. Successful and less successfulstudents may differ in the amount and/ornature of the information they extract fromlectures. Because little research exists onthe type of information that subjects put intheir notes, it has been difficult to deter-mine how different students represent newlecture information in their notes andmemory. To address these issues, we com-pared directly the notes and recall of suc-cessful and less successful college students.We also varied whether subjects had theopportunity to review their notes before re-call. The latter variable was included be-cause the important processes that lead todifferential success among college studentsmay occur when the notes are reviewed andnot during encoding. Immediate and de-layed retention were also compared to de-termine if the effects of reviewing one'snotes vary over a 1-week retention interval.

Method

Design and Subjects

The design of this experiment was a 2 X 2 X 2factorial. The independent variables were academicsuccess of the students (successful vs. less successful),time of testing (immediate vs. 1-week delay), andwhether subjects were allowed to study their notesbefore recall (no review vs. review). All of the vari-ables were manipulated between subjects, and memo-ry for the lecture was evaluated with a free-recall test.

Grade point average (GPA) was used as the indica-tor of academic success. This waa done because stu-dents with a high GPA are those who have previouslydone well in classroom situations and because effec-tive processing of lecture information is usually neces-sary for a good grade in a course. To make this mea-sure fairly comparable among students, only thegrades from basic introductory courses that are re-quired of all students at Furman University (e.g.,math, English, science) were used to compute GPAs,Subjects' GPAs were not computed until subjects had


finished participating in the experiment. To meet ourgoal of 10 subjects in each of the eight groups, 24subjects were randomly assigned to each of the fourtreatment conditions {immediate test-no review, im-mediate test-review, delayed test-no review, delayedtest-review). After eliminating transfer students andthose who had taken less than three of the requiredcourses, the median GPA (Median = 2.53) among theremaining subjects was calculated and used as the cut-off for classifying students as successful or less suc-cessful. Because of the uneven distribution of suc-cessful and less successful students in the four treat-ment conditions, subjects were randomly eliminatedfrom groups that contained more than 10 successful orless successful students. Also, a total of 15 subjectswere added to the groups that contained fewer than 10successful or less successful students. Although thereare potential problems with this method of assigningsubjects to conditions, there is no reason to suspectthat the random elimination of subjects from condi-tions produced any biased effects. Further, the ad-vantage of this method is that it prevents experiment-er bias effects with regard to the academic successvariable. All subjects were introductory psychologystudents who participated for course credit, and theywere tested in groups of two to six.

Not surprisingly, Verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test(VSAT) scores were correlated with GPAs. Studentsin the successful conditions had a mean GPA of 3.12and a mean VSAT score of 575. The mean GPA andVSAT score of the less successful students was 1.93and 485, respectively. A 2 X 2 X 2 analysis of variance(ANOVA) was performed on each of these measures totest the equality of these measures among conditions.Each analysis revealed a reliable main effect of aca-demic success, F(l, 72) = 168.51, MSe = .17, and F(l,72) = 21.89, MSe = 7,399.14 for GPA and VSAT, re-spectively. No other main effects or interactions ap-proached significance.

Materials and Procedure

All subjects were presented with the same video-taped lecture used in Experiment 1. They were toldto listen carefully to the lecture and to try to compre-hend it as if they were in a typical classroom situation.In addition, all subjects were asked to take notes onthe lecture in their normal style. Following the lec-ture, all subjects rated their comprehension of thelecture on the same 7-point scale used in Experiment1. The immediate subjects then either studied theirnotes or were given math problems to calculate for 5min, depending on whether they were in the review orno review condition. These subjects were then given10 min to write down as much of the lecture as possi-ble. The delayed subjects were dismissed after ratingthe lecture for comprehension and went through thesame procedures as the immediate subjects (mathproblems or note review followed by free recall) 1 weeklater.

Results and Discussion

For all analyses, the alpha level was set at

Table 1Mean Number of Propositions Recalled as aFunction of Review Condition, Time ofTesting, and Student Type

Studenttype

SuccessfulLess successful

Time of testing

Immediate

Noreview

29.422.2

Review

28.826.8

Delay

Noreview

6.85.1

Review

23.320.5

.05. Effects that produced p values be-tween .05 and .10 are reported as marginal-ly significant effects. The analysis of thecomprehension ratings (using all three in-dependent variables as factors) produced amarginally significant main effect of the ac-ademic success variable, F(l, 72) = 3.82,MSe = 1.31. This result indicated that theless successful students (M = 2.68) foundthe lecture more difficult to comprehendthan did the successful students {M =2.18). There were no reliable effects of theother variables and no significant interac-tions.

Recall

The number of propositions recalled wasscored using the same method used in Ex-periment 1. Thirty-two recall protocolswere randomly selected and scored by tworeviewers. There was high agreement be-tween these two reviewers (r = .91), andthe remaining protocols were scored by oneof these individuals. The mean number ofpropositions recalled in each of the eightgroups is presented is Table 1. Thesescores were subjected to a 2 X 2 X 2ANOVA, and as can be seen in Table 1, allthree main effects were reliable: (a) Suc-cessful students recalled more propositionsthan did less successful students, F(l, 72) =5.32, MSe = 44.12; (b) there was reliableforgetting over the 1-week retention inter-val, F(l, 72) = 75.15, MSe = 44.12; and (c)reviewing the notes led to higher recall, F(l,72) = 36.52, MSe = 44.12. Further, a sig-nificant interaction occurred between thedelay and review variables, F(l, 72) = 22.06,MSe = 44.12, indicating that reviewing was


Table 2Mean Number of Propositions Recalled forEach Importance Level for Successful andLess Successful Student Types

Importance

HighMediumLow

HighMediumLow

Time of testing

Immediate

Noreview Review

Successful

9.2 11.36.1 5.74.9 4.4

Less successful

7.0 9.14.3 6.03.2 3.7

Delay

Noreview

2.5.6

1.0

1.9.7

1.5

Review

10.74.91.6

6.75.02.3

particularly effective in improving recallafter a 1-week delay. In fact, a Newman-Keuls analysis revealed that reviewing thenotes only improved recall at delayed test-ing. After a 1-week retention interval, sub-jects who reviewed their notes recallednearly four times more propositions thandid subjects who did not review their notes.Thus, the importance of the external stor-age function of note-taking increases withlong delays. Although there was some vari-ability in the differences between success-ful and less successful students under thedifferent treatment conditions, academicsuccess did not interact with either the re-view or time of test variables. Thus thesuccessful students, compared with the lesssuccessful students, did not benefit morefrom studying their notes or forget less overa 1-week delay. Rather, it appears thatthey extracted more from the lecture dur-ing initial encoding.

To examine encoding of the thematicstructure of the lecture, subjects' recall pro-tocols were further analyzed for the num-ber of high-, medium-, and low-importancepropositions recalled. These data are pre-sented in Table 2. The same importancelevel ratings from Experiment 1 were usedto classify the recalled propositions intothree importance level categories (each cat-egory contained 28 propositions).

A four-variable mixed ANOVA was per-

formed on these data, with student type,note review, and delay of test as the be-tween-subjects variables and importancelevel as the within-subject factor. Thisanalysis produced the same results as theanalysis of total recall, and therefore onlythe new effects involving the importancelevel variables are presented here. A high-ly reliable levels effect appeared, F(2,144)= 110.61, MSe = 3.82. A Newman-Keulsanalysis revealed that subjects recalledmore high-importance propositions thanmedium-importance propositions andmore medium-importance propositionsthan low-importance propositions, whichwas the case for both successful and lesssuccessful students. Further, there was areliable two-way interaction between im-portance level and review condition, F{2f144) = 20.48, MSe = 3.82, and a significantthree-way interaction among these twovariables and the time of test variable, F(2,144) = 5.01, MSe = 3.82. As can be seen inTable 2, the cause of these interactions wasthe lack of a strong levels effect for subjectswho did not review their notes and weretested after a 1-week delay. Under theseconditions, recall of all propositions wasuniformly low, regardless of their impor-tance level. Students who recalled imme-diately and/or studied their notes beforerecall exhibited much higher recall of high-importance propositions compared withlow-importance propositions, and in eachof these groups, there was a reliable lineartrend for the importance level variable, allFs( 1,144) 2* 18.91, MSe = 3.82.

The results of major interest from theimportance levels analysis involved com-parisons of successful and less successfulstudents. In addition to a main effect ofacademic success, F(lt 72) = 6.80, MSe =8.10, there was a significant interaction be-tween academic success and the impor-tance level variable, F(2, 144) = 6.56, MSe= 3.82. As Figure 2 shows, a Newman-Keuls analysis revealed that successful stu-dents differed from less successful studentsonly in their recall of high-importancepropositions and not in their recall of medi-um- and low-importance propositions. Amarginally significant interaction amongthe variables of student type, review condi-tion, and importance level, F(2,144) = 2.85,


Table 3Mean Number of Propositions Written in theNotes as a Function of Review Conditions,Time of Testing, and Student Type

Itodum

[UPORTANCC LEVEL

Figure 2, Mean number of high-, medium-, and low-importance propositions recalled by successful andleas successful students.

MSe = 3.82, indicated that the differencebetween successful and less successful stu-dents was more pronounced in the reviewconditions. Even so, a Newman-Keulsanalysis revealed that successful studentsrecalled more high-importance proposi-tions than did less successful students inthe immediate-no review, immediate-re-view, and delayed-review conditions. Inthe delayed-no review condition, in whichthere was little overall recall, successfulstudents did not recall more high-impor-tance propositions than did less successfulstudents. Thus, whereas both types of stu-dents exhibited a levels effect in recall, suc-cessful students recalled more of the mainideas than did less successful students innearly all of the conditions, and this is usu-ally considered to reflect greater organiza-tional processing of the material.

Note Content and Relation to Recall

The total number of propositions in thenotes were counted, and the means for eachgroup are presented in Table 3. The 2X2X 2 ANOVA performed on this measureshowed only that successful students re-corded more propositions in their notesthan did less successful students, F(l, 72) =4.55, MSe ~ 1,84. No other effects werereliable.

The numbers of high-, medium-, and low-importance propositions in the notes weretabulated to examine any differences be-tween the successful and less successfulstudents in the nature of the propositions

Studenttype

SuccessfulLess successful

Time of testing

Immediate

Noreview

41.534.3

Review

36.129.8

Delay

Noreview

36.529.8

Review

32.735.7

recorded. Consistent with the results ofthe overall measure of the number of prop-ositions in the notes, a 2 X 2 X 2 X 3ANOVA performed on these data indicatedthat successful students recorded morepropositions in their notes than did lesssuccessful students, F(l, 72) = 4.03, MSe =11.62. As can be seen in Table 4, there wasalso a strong effect of importance level, F(2t144) = 522.55, MSe = 4.02. According to aNewman-Keuls analysis, both successfuland less successful students wrote morehigh-importance propositions in theirnotes than medium-importance proposi-tions and more medium- than low-impor-tance propositions. More important, how-ever, was the reliable interaction between

Table 4Mean Number of Propositions Recorded in theNotes for Each Importance Level forSuccessful and Less Successful Student Types

Importance

HighMediumLow

HighMediumLow

Time of testing

Immediate

Noreview Review

Successful

13.7 14.08.5 8.93.8 2.3

Less successful

12.2 11.07.9 7.73.4 1.6

Delay

Noreview

13.28.62.5

12.16.92.2

Review

14.57.02.0

12.18.63.0


the student type and importance level vari-ables, F{2, 144) = 4.73, MSe = 4.02. ANewman-Keuls analysis indicated thatsuccessful students included more high-im-portance propositions in their notes thandid less successful students. These twogroups of students did not differ in thenumber of medium- and low-importancepropositions recorded in the notes. Fur-ther, a marginally significant interactionamong the student type, importance level,and review variables, F(2,144) = 2.89, MSe= 4.02, indicated that the effect was stron-ger in the review (compared with the noreview) conditions. This result is difficultto interpret because subjects had no priorknowledge of whether or not they wouldhave the opportunity to review their notes.Nonetheless, a Newman-Keuls analysis re-vealed that the difference between success-ful and less successful students in notinghigh-importance propositions was reliablefor subjects in the review conditions andmarginally significant for subjects who didnot review their notes. In summary, thecontent of the notes closely paralleled re-call. That is, the differences between suc-cessful and less successful studentsemerged only with high-importance propo-sitions.

An analysis of the probability of recallingpropositions that did and did not appear inthe notes indicated that noted propositionswere very well recalled. Subjects recalled40% of the propositions that were in theirnotes and only 7% of the propositions thatwere not in their notes. Separate analyseswere performed on each of these measures,and they indicated that successful and lesssuccessful students did not differ in theprobability of recalling propositions thatappeared in their notes, F(l, 72) = 1.75,MSe

= -OH. or in the probability of recall-ing non-noted propositions, F < 1. Theseresults reveal that successful and less suc-cessful students used their notes in a simi-lar fashion and that recall differences wererelated to what they initially recorded intheir notes.

Somewhat surprising to us, we could findno other reliable differences between thenotes of successful and less successful stu-dents. An efficiency and an abbreviationmeasure were tabulated for each subject,

and successful and less successful studentsdid not differ on either of these measures.

General Discussion

The results of the first experiment pro-vide strong support for the encoding func-tion of note-taking. Although note-takingdid not lead to higher overall recall, therecall patterns of note-takers and non-note-takers differed markedly. Althoughthese results are in agreement with claimsthat overall retention measures are nothighly sensitive to the effects of note-taking(Barnett, DiVesta, & Rogozinski, 1981),note-taking does appear to have pro-nounced effects on the outcome of learning(Peper & Mayer, 1978). Note-takers re-called more high-importance propositionsthan did non-note-takers, but these twogroups did not differ in their recall of medi-um- and low-importance propositions.Also, the levels effect was exhibited only bysubjects who took notes. Thus, our resultsare not particularly consistent with thequantitative view of note-taking, whereinnote-taking is predicted to improve the re-call of propositions at all levels of impor-tance. Rather, note-taking appears to en-courage students to engage in qualitativelydifferent types of processing.

The present results also provide some in-sight into the specific encoding processesinduced through note-taking. Our view isbased primarily on the presence of a levelseffect in the recall of all note-taking condi-tions in both experiments (except in thedelayed test-no review group, whereinoverall recall was very low) and the absenceof such an effect when subjects did not takenotes. In past research, the levels effecthas been used to assess the encoding of the-matic information and factors that increasethe encoding of the structure of text, suchas salient organizational structures and ori-enting activities that foster relational pro-cessing (Einstein et al., 1984; Thorndyke,1977) t have all been shown to enhance thelevels effect. By contrast the levels effectis not observed under conditions that donot allow the discovery of the organization-al structure of material, for example, whenstory segments are presented in a randomorder (Thorndyke, 1977) or when subjects

G. EINSTEIN, J. MORRIS, AND S. SMITH 531

perform proposition-specific processing ontexts that have an ambiguous structure(Einstein et aL, 1984). Thus, the contrast-ing recall patterns of note-takers and non-note-takers indicate that note-taking en-hances the degree to which students relatepropositions to one another and discoverthe underlying theme or structure of thelecture. The disproportionately largenumber of high-level propositions in thenotes of note-takers further supports thisinterpretation. Our position on the func-tional effects of note-taking is quite similarto that presented by Mayer and his col-leagues (Mayer, 1980; Peper & Mayer,1978) in describing the effects of note-tak-ing and mathemagenic activities in general.Our results, in conjunction with Peper andMayer's (1978) research showing that note-taking leads to processing that supportsgood performance on far transfer tasks,provide converging evidence for the impor-tant role of note-taking in encouraging in-tegrative processing.

Another major goal of the present re-search was to examine how successful andless successful students differ in terms oftheir processing and recall of lecture infor-mation. Although past studies have shownthat high-ability subjects have better mem-ory for lecture material than do low-abilitysubjects (McClendon, 1958; Peper &Mayer, 1978), little research exists on theprocesses underlying this difference in per-formance. Comparisons of successful stu-dents with less successful students revealedthat they differed in their recall and notingof the main ideas. Although total recallwas higher for the successful students, thiswas due entirely to greater recall of thehighly important propositions. Conse-quently, the successful students do not ap-pear to exert greater overall attention oreffort to all types of propositions in thelecture. Also, it is not the case that suc-cessful students organize and less success-ful students do not. Both groups of stu-dents appeared to organize and structurethe lecture information (both groups re-called and noted more high-importancepropositions than low-importance proposi-tions), yet the successful students exhibiteda stronger levels effect in their notes and inrecall. Thus, it appears that successful and

less successful students differ primarily interms of degree to which they organize andstructure lecture information. The ana-lyses of the notes and the comparisons ofthe notes with recall indicated that the re-call differences between successful and lesssuccessful students were due to factors oc-curring at encoding (rather than at retriev-al) and to factors involved more with whatideas were included in the notes than withnote-taking style. Successful students didnot remember a greater percentage of theirnotes, nor did they benefit more from re-viewing their notes. The general pattern ofresults indicates that successful studentshave more powerful organizational skillsfor structuring expository materials. Fur-ther research is needed to determine whatsuccessful students use to help them betterstructure the lecture and identify the cen-tral concepts. For instance, they may havericher knowledge structures that they ap-ply to the encoding of lecture information,they may be more capable of handling theheavy information processing demands ofsimultaneously listening to, organizing, andtaking notes on a lecture, and/or they maybe more sensitive to phrases, words, orspeaking habits that lecturers use to signalcentral concepts. In any case, it appearsthat remediation programs or techniquesfor improving lecture processing should fo-cus on the teaching of organizational skills.This view is entirely consistent with previ-ous suggestions (Mayer, 1975) that devicesthat encourage relational processing andthe identification of superordinate con-cepts, such as advance organizers, are espe-cially effective with low-ability students.

Although the qualitative framework wasfound to be superior to the quantitativeframework for predicting the effects ofnote-taking on the relative recall of high-,medium-, and low-importance proposi-tions, other aspects of the data were consis-tent with a limited version of the quantita-tive theory.1 In both experiments, theprobability of recalling noted propositionswas much higher than the probability ofrecalling non-noted propositions (regard-less of importance level). If the interpreta-

1 We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer forbringing this point to our attention.


tion of the quantitative hypothesis is thatthe attention and activities involved inwriting an idea into one's notes cause bettermemory for that idea, then the probabilityresults described above are in agreementwith the restricted version of the hypothe-sis.2 This version of the quantitative hy-pothesis is not incompatible with the quali-tative hypothesis, and it seems that boththeories are necessary for interpreting theentire pattern of results. The qualitativetheory appears useful for explaining whichideas will be attended to and recorded inthe notes, and the restricted version of thequantitative theory may explain why thenoted propositions are well recalled.

Another result of interest in the presentresearch was the interaction between thedelay of testing and review variables.Whereas many researchers (e.g., Carter &Van Matre, 1975) have shown that review-ing one's notes increases recall (the externalfunction of note-taking), our results sug-gest that the benefits of reviewing increaseover a delay interval. At immediate test-ing, reviewing had no appreciable effects onrecall. After a 1-week delay, however, re-viewing produced a fourfold increase in thenumber of propositions recalled.

2 It should be noted that we cannot unequivocallysupport this limited version of the quantitative theorybecause in the present experiments the variables nec-essary to test this theory were not experimentally ma-nipulated. For example, note-taking per se may havecaused the greater recall of noted propositions. Alter-natively, the propositions in the notes may have beennoted because they were salient ideas to the subject, inwhich case they may have been recalled even if theyhad not been written into notes.

References

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Barnett, J. E., DiVesta, F. J., & Rogozinski, J. T.(1981). What is learned in note-taking? Journalof Educational Psychology, 73,181-192.

Bretzing, B. H., & Kulhavy, R. W. (1981). Note-

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Carter, J. F., & Van Matre, N. H. (1975). Note-taking versus note having. Journal of EducationalPsychology, 67,900-904.

Cook, L. K., & Mayer, R. E, (1983). Reading strate-gies training for meaningful learning from prose. InM. Pressley & J. R. Leven (Eds.), Cognitive strategyresearch: Educational applications (pp. 87-131).New York: Springer-Verlag.

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Fisher, J. L., & Harris, M. B. (1974). Note takingand recall. Journal of Educational Research, 67,291-292.

Frase,L.T. (1975). Prose processing. InG.H.Bow-er (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motiva-tion (pp. 1-47). New York: Academic Press,

Howe, M. J. A. (1970). Using students' notes toexamine the role of the individual learner in acquir-ing meaningful subject matter. Journal of Educa-tional Research, 64, 61-63.

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Mayer, R. E. (1975). Different problem-solvingcompetencies established in learning computer pro-gramming with and without meaningful models.Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 725-734.

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McClendon, P. I. (1958). An experimental study ofthe relationship between the note-taking practicesand listening comprehension of college freshmenduring expository lectures. Speech Monographs,25, 222-228.

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Stein, B. S-, Bransford, J. D., Franks, J. J., Owings, R.A.,Vye,N. J.,& McGraw, W. (1982). Differencesin the precision of self-generated elaborations.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,7/7,399-405.

Thorndyke, P. W. (1977). Cognitive structures incomprehension and memory of narrative discourse.Cognitive Psychology* 9, 77-110.

Received September 13,1984Revision received April 25,1985 •

Note-Taking, Individual Differences, and Memory for ...€¦ · NOTE-TAKING AND MEMORY 523 encoding when the presentation rate is fast and the informational density high. In these

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