Note-taking and Its Impact on Learning, Academic Performance, and Memory

Abstract

Note-taking is a significant part of students’ academics because it improves their learning and helps them with their memory. Writing effective notes that are concise helps students to understand the information easier and allows them to retrieve information efficiently. Note-taking allows students to organize information and to enhance their cognitive processing. There are many different ways to structure notes such as intentional free notes, outline notes, and matrix notes. Therefore, it is important that students find their own structured way to write effective notes during lecture. The purpose of this research study is to investigate whether effective-note-taking improves the quality of learning and memory retrieval for students. A survey was administered and collected from 200 students of the City College of New York during fall of 2022. The survey questionnaire included Likert-type and open-ended questions, which was used to examine the students’ thoughts, perceptions and their views about the benefits of effective note-taking. The data suggest that student’s ability to note-taking and their method of note-taking is positively correlated with their GPA and performance. Furthermore, most students believe note-taking is vital to have a higher academic performance. Furthermore, the data suggests that the students’ perceptions is that effective note-taking helps them with their memory and information retrieval.