Students' notetaking: the effects of teacher immediacy and clarity

Abstract

Lecture listening is one of the most common classroom experiences for college students. Unfortunately, students are relatively inefficient notetakers in these situations; in fact, students record less than 40% of the information from lectures. This experiment explored the effects of two lecture cues, immediacy and organizational statements, on students' (n = 104) notetaking effectiveness. Results indicated that students recorded more details and organizational points when listening to lectures with prominent organizational cues, and they also recorded more details when listening to lectures with lower levels of immediacy. The number of details and organizational points recorded in students notes were strongly related to learning outcomes as measured by three separate tests.

Keywords:

• lecture cues
• organizational cues
• immediacy
• notetaking
• cognitive learning

Notes

B. Scott Titsworth (PhD, University of Nebraska, 1999) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701. Portions of this manuscript were based on the author's dissertation directed by Dr. William Seiler, University of Nebraska. The author would like to thank Drs. Kenneth Kiewra, Judy Pearson, Paul Nelson, and Elizabeth Graham for feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. Scott Titsworth can be contacted at [email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

B. Scott Titsworth

B. Scott Titsworth (PhD, University of Nebraska, 1999) is an assistant professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701. Portions of this manuscript were based on the author's dissertation directed by Dr. William Seiler, University of Nebraska. The author would like to thank Drs. Kenneth Kiewra, Judy Pearson, Paul Nelson, and Elizabeth Graham for feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. Scott Titsworth can be contacted at [email protected]