Students' Lecture Notes and Their Relation to Test Performance

The empirical relations between quantitative and qualitative aspects of students' lecture notes and test performance are not well known. The present study examined these relations naturdlistically by analyzing the notes taken by college students during a specially constructed, but otherwise typical, classroom lecture. Key findings were as follows: (a) Most students included In their notes less than 25% of the propositions judged worthy of inclusion and only 50% of the targeted main ideas; (b) The amount and kind of information included in the notes was related to test performance; (c) Inclusion of specific information in the notes tuas a sufficient but not a necessary condition for correctly answering a question based on that information. These findings suggest a stronger relation between note-taking and test performance than has previously been revealed.