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Critical Evaluation of Four Articles On Note Taking

Critical Evaluation of Four Articles On Note Taking

Note taking is the process of recording information from another source and is an integral part of university studies. Comprehensive studies have been conducted to underline the cognitive process of note taking. This essay aims to critique four research articles pertaining to the study of note taking namely by highlighting several pros and cons of certain methodologies used, to improve future researches done on the topic of note taking.

The first article aims to examine whether the use of laptops in note taking impairs learning compared to people who were using the longhand method (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014). They conducted three experiments to investigate whether taking notes on a laptop versus writing longhand would affect academic performance, and to explore the potential mechanism of verbatim overlap as a proxy for the depth of processing. They used an experimental design in order to achieve a quantitative result. Using five 15 minutes TED talks lectures, the use of either laptop or longhand method for note taking as a categorical variable, and 67 participant samples from different university research subject pools, they concluded that participants using laptops were more inclined to take verbatim notes than participants using the longhand method. An overlooked procedure of this methodology is that in their first study, either one or two students were placed in an enclosed room. Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) unknowingly made this a variable in their experiment. Additionally, typical university lectures are done in an occupied lecture hall. Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) should have had his experiments in a lecture hall with students while testing his participants, emulating an environment similar to the real world. Doing so would increase external validity without sacrificing internal validity. Participants were taken randomly from a pool of voluntary university students, which is a good representation of the larger population for their hypothesis of the experiment. Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) did not account for how the participants usually took notes in their classes. Instructing the participants to take down notes in a medium they are not used to could have affected their implicit processing of information, affecting results. The experimenters should have divided the participants into two separate groups based on which medium they were more comfortable in using. A third control group whereby participants did not take notes would have been beneficial to this experiment, eliminating compromising factors such as selection threats (Trochim, 2006).

The next article alleviates most of the previously stated concerns. This experiment was conducted to determine whether students’ note-taking and online chatting can influence their recalls of lecture content and note quality (Wei , Wang & Fass, 2014). Wei et al. (2014) prepared the experimental study by having two undergraduates individually rate the video lecture and chatroom application. The two undergraduates rated the experiment materials to be as close as 90% similar to real world situations. This eliminates any researcher biases that may affect the overall results and ensures high levels of external validity. The experiment quantitatively concluded that students who participated in online chatting while learning performed worse in immediate recall test. Cognitive learning was measured by a 10 multiple-choice questionnaire based on the lecture. This method of measurement does not go fully with the hypothesis of the experiment. Recognition refers to our ability to correctly identify a piece of presented information, while recall designates the retrieval of related details from memory. The multiple-choice questionnaire tests the participant’s cognitive recognition instead of their recall. To alleviate this, the experimenters could simply replace the multiple-choice questions with a ‘fill-in-blank’ questions. Cognitive learning based on recall then could be measured by the amount of correct keywords used by the participants. The experiment also only takes into account of short-term memory learning. Wei et al. (2014) had completely disregarded long-term memory learning. Certain university students are adept to cram lots of information into their short-term memory, disregarding the actual process of learning and instead ‘vomits’ the information back out during examinations. Wei et al. could have had another questionnaire after some time had passed, to confirm that actual cognitive learning has occurred within the participants.

The purpose of the studies reported in this article is to evaluate the hypothesis that transcription fluency, verbal working memory capacity, and the ability to identify main ideas would be related to the quality of notes (Peverly, Ramaswamy, Brown, Sumowski & Alidoost, 2007). Peverly et al. (2007) quantitatively concluded that transcription fluency is important not only to writing essays but to record the ideas presented in the lecture as well. The experiment was conducted by having 85 undergraduate participants watch a 20 minute videotape on the psychology of problem solving. The participants were then told to take notes as detailed as possible as they only had 10 minutes to study their notes and were tasked to complete tests, such as letter fluency. Participants were then tasked to write summary of the videotape. A limitation of this correlational design study is that while it proves that there is a relationship between transcription fluency and note quality, it cannot determine if it is a sole causation factor. A correlation coefficient is able to numerically link the strength between the dependent variables and independent variables, but does not factor in other variables such as cognitive abilities (McLeod, 2008), or for example in this case, interest in the videotape content. This makes the experiment somewhat lack internal validity. On the other hand when investigating relationships for the first time, correlational studies provides a good starting position. It allows researchers to determine the strength and direction of a relationship so that later studies can narrow the findings down and, if possible, determine causation experimentally. The experimenters also intentionally introduced a positive bias onto the participants as they were told that they had to write a summary of the videotape. This would implicitly induce a mindset whereby the participants would work harder to study the notes, though it would be tedious to take into account each participants cognitive ability to do so.

The final article examines whether research into student’s conceptualisations can contribute to the understanding of taking notes in lectures (Badger, White, Sutherland & Haggis, 2001). A descriptive study based on survey research, Badger et al. (2001) proceeded the experiment by administering a semi-structured interview. 18 self-selected student participants were interviewed by the members of the research team who were not teaching them. Badger et al. (2001) qualitatively reached four conclusions, most notably that understanding students’ views on note taking and how the lectures were conceptualised by the students, were necessary to complement future research in this area. An advantage of a survey research is that it offers a unique means of data collection. Badger et al. (2001) had access to what the three other studies lacked, which was the personal experience of their participants, in addition to statistical data. Interviewers in semi-structured interviews also have the flexibility to follow topical trajectories in the conversation, and may stray from the guide whenever appropriate. This allows a more natural flow of conversation between the interviewer and interviewee. A limitation that this experiment has is that the participants were self volunteers. The experiment would have yielded a more representative result if the participants were chosen at random. Social desirability bias is also a huge factor of a survey research design. Social desirability bias refers to the fact that in self-reports, people will often report inaccurately on sensitive topics in order to present themselves in the best possible light (Fisher, 1993). In this experiment, Badger et al. (2001) had no way to deduce that what answers that were put forward by the participants were actually true. The participants could have either implicitly or explicitly produced answers that projected themselves in a good manner. This may even be reinforced by the fact that most of the participants have never been taught by the researchers.

To summarise, the four articles have provided insight on how research on note taking has been done. Generalisability, or ecological validity, is one of the key factors of any study. It refers to the more control psychologists exert in a study, the less they may be able to generalise. Balance between internal and external validity is therefore crucial, such as the sample used. A quantitative conclusion should be strived as much as possible, though conducting a qualitative pilot study would be complementary. Quantitative methods ensure high amounts of data while qualitative methods would result in a more in-depth insight and information on how a certain phenomenon affects the real world. If time and cost is adequate, conducting the two methods would provide a comprehensive conclusion to any hypothesis, which would be beneficial for avoiding pre-judgements. That being said, study mediums are ever changing, from the more traditional longhand method in the previous century, to the more current culture of using the laptop. Future researchers should take into consideration all the points that were raised in this analysis for their studies, and in time, reach our unified goal of understanding the human brain.

References

Badger, R., White, G., Sutherland, P., & Haggis, T., (2001) Note perfect: an investigation of how students view taking notes in lectures, System 29, 405-417

Fisher, R. J. (1993). Social desirability bias and the validity of indirect questioning, Journal of Consumer Research, 20, 303-315.

Flora, F.W., Wang, Y.K., & Fass, W. (2014). An experimental study of online chatting and note taking techniques on college students’ cognitive learning from a lecture, Computers in Human Behaviour, 34, 148-156.

McLeod, S. A. (2008). Correlation. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/correlation.html

Mueller, P.A., & Oppenheimer, D.A. (2014).The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking, Psychological Science.

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

Trochim, W., (2006) Multiple group threats. Retrieved from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/intmult.php