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An image isn’t at all times price a thousand phrases.
New analysis has discovered that college students who take notes outperform college students who {photograph} slides throughout a web-based lecture.
Dr. Sarah Shi Hui Wong, an teacher on the Nationwide College of Singapore, and the lead writer of the paper describes the analysis on taking notes (opens in new tab), explains how the examine was carried out, what impressed it, and the way she discusses the analysis together with her college students.
What Impressed Analysis on Taking Notes?
“Lately, we’ve seen many college students whipping out their smartphones to take photographs of lecture supplies,” Wong says. “As educators, we’ve generally discovered ourselves out of the blue changing into unwitting celebrities confronted with a sea of cameras in lectures.”
Know-how has geared up college students with extra note-taking instruments for shortly and conveniently recording info, nonetheless, she says, “What’s much less clear is how these newer strategies really fare towards conventional ones corresponding to longhand note-taking.”
Wong and her colleagues wished to find out whether or not college students be taught higher by writing notes, taking photographs, or not taking any notes or photographs in any respect, a surprisingly understudied space.
How Was The Analysis Carried out?
2 hundred school college students had been recruited as a part of two experiments. In each, college students had been offered with a sequence of video-recorded lectures and had been randomly assigned to both write notes, take photographs utilizing their smartphone digicam, or not take any notes or photographs.
“The lectures comprised PowerPoint slides with audio narration, very similar to what number of on-line classes are delivered,” Wong says. “Earlier than the lectures, we informed all college students that they might later be examined on the fabric. All college students had been additionally knowledgeable of and supplied with a evaluate alternative earlier than the check. This was necessary as a result of college students typically take notes or photographs exactly to allow them to revisit them later when making ready for an examination.”
After watching the lecture, note-takers reviewed their handwritten notes, photo-takers reviewed their photographs, and college students who didn’t take notes got precise printouts of the lecture slides to evaluate.
“Since photographs and printouts would solely comprise info that had been visually offered on the slides, we ensured that the audio narration within the lectures overlapped carefully with the onscreen content material, in order that photo-takers and no-note-takers wouldn’t be unfairly deprived,” Wong says. “After the evaluate alternative, the scholars had been examined on their recall of the lecture content material by typing as a lot as they might bear in mind. This typing process ensured that each one college students did the check utilizing a medium that was completely different from what that they had used in the course of the lectures. In any other case, a pen-and-paper check might unfairly favor note-takers who had equally studied the lectures by writing notes.”
What The Analysis Discovered
“Throughout each experiments, we constantly discovered that note-takers remembered extra info from the lectures than photo-takers or no-note-takers,” Wong says. “The truth is, photo-takers carried out simply as poorly on the check as their friends who didn’t take any notes in any respect.”
Wong provides, “The longhand benefit occurred regardless that note-takers solely managed to put in writing down about 50% of the lecture content material of their notes, whereas photo-takers and no-note-takers might entry as much as 100% of the lecture content material of their photographs or printouts throughout evaluate.”
Within the second experiment, Wong and her colleagues additionally checked out mind-wondering within the note-takers vs. different teams.
“We discovered that photo-takers and no-note-takers reported mind-wandering extra continuously in the course of the lectures than note-takers, and this attentional distinction predicted the scholars’ later check efficiency,” Wong says. “Put collectively, our outcomes present that writing notes reduces mind-wandering greater than photo-taking or no-note-taking. In flip, this attentional benefit improves college students’ studying and reminiscence of lecture content material.”
What Wong Tells Her College students In regards to the Analysis
“In my courses, I now share this examine with my college students and we focus on how they’ll apply the findings to their studying,” Wong says. “I encourage my college students to take notes and put apart their smartphone – digicam – throughout class. In my expertise, discussing the science of studying with college students by way of such analysis additionally piques their curiosity and curiosity in questioning what sorts of examine strategies are simpler and why.”
Different Questions and Potential Causes
Wong’s examine didn’t examine longhand note-taking to typed note-taking on a laptop computer. That query has been researched up to now and the outcomes are combined.
“An early examine discovered that longhand note-taking yields higher check efficiency than laptop computer note-taking (opens in new tab), however some latest replications (opens in new tab) haven’t discovered definitive proof for this impact,” she says.
As well as, there’s nonetheless extra to study precisely why note-taking appears so useful to studying. “Different research have proven that college students be taught higher after they have interaction in generative processes corresponding to summarizing, organizing, and integrating info throughout note-taking,” Wong says. “These generative processes allow college students to be taught the fabric deeply and meaningfully, and will not be mutually unique with the position of mind-wandering.”
The standard of scholars’ notes additionally issues. “If college students take notes by merely transcribing their trainer’s phrases verbatim as a substitute of partaking in generative processes, then they’re much less prone to be taught deeply,” says Wong. “Quite, it’s necessary to information college students on learn how to take high-quality notes for his or her efficient studying.”
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