The current status of students’ note-taking: Why and how do students take notes?

Numerous researchers have investigated the factors that influence students’ note-taking. In the present study, we explored whether recent advances in technology are associated with changes in students’ self-reported note-taking and classroom experiences. We administered a survey to a sample of current and former university students to investigate why students take notes, how students take notes, students’ classroom experiences, and whether students’ note-taking and classroom experiences have changed in recent years. Students reported taking notes for a variety of reasons, including to enhance encoding and external storage. Students also reported high confidence in their note-taking ability. The two cohorts provided similar responses regarding why they take notes. Relative to former students, current students reported using technology to take notes more frequently and reported receiving PowerPoint slides from their professors more frequently. Understanding how technology impacts students’ note-taking and learning is an important goal for researchers.