Individual versus collaborative note-taking: Results of a quasi-experimental study on student note completeness, test performance, and academic writing

Abstract

There is research showing benefits to both collaboration and note-taking, but a lack of research into how they may both work together in an online context. More specifically, there is a gap in the research looking at how collaborative note-taking and individual note-taking can be compared when considering the quality of the notes taken, and how note-quality can impact student performance. The present study looks at the online note-taking behavior and performance of 186 graduate students studying at a Korean university. The results indicate that students who collaborate perform better than individual note-takers on measures of recall of course content, but that individual note-takers perform better on tasks focused on academic writing. Furthermore, the findings suggest that note-quality has no effect on collaborative note-takers' recall of course content, and a slight negative impact on their writing, while individual note-takers benefit from higher quality notes for both recall and writing.