'Everyone is just so furiously typing': supporting student choices around digital notetaking in university lectures

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi32.1429

Keywords:

notetaking, digital technology, educational technology

Abstract

University of Bristol students have indicated that 65% of them take notes digitally. As learning developers, how do we support students to take fit-for-purpose digital notes against a background of changing technology? In this study we posed two questions:

  1. What are the ways in which students currently take digital notes in lectures?
  2. What difficulties do students encounter in taking digital notes in lectures?

Following formal ethical approval, we collected data using a questionnaire (n=123) and four focus groups (n=17), between January and May 2022. Participants in both included undergraduate and postgraduate students representing arts, humanities and STEMM subjects. Participation was voluntary and results were anonymised. We found that students choose a wide variety of digital tools for notetaking, in response to three interrelated aspects of the university learning environment: (1) perceived social pressure, for example the sound of typing, (2) lecture content, delivery and future assessment, and (3) affordances of digital technologies such as the comparative speed of typed notes.

These themes have helped us understand the mechanisms of student notetaking choices and therefore allow us to offer relevant support. In this session we further illustrated the three main themes and presented examples of resources developed in response to them, modelling how learning developers can use these insights to support student notetaking practice: Firstly, through an open-access, online self-study resource that shares illustrative data from the research to inform student practice; secondly, a student-led workshop on OneNote, the most cited app in our student survey; and thirdly, a series of student blog posts on approaches to taking digital notes in different subject areas, as the research indicated lecture content affects digital notetaking choices. We also discussed how student notetaking practices may evolve considering emerging technologies such as generative AI tools.

Author Biographies

Beckie Arden, University of Bristol

Beckie Arden is a Study Skills Tutor at the University of Bristol where she supports Life Science students to develop their academic skills. In addition, she is an academic mentor for a national widening participation charity supporting science students in their transition to university. From this, and through her previous work in science education, at primary, secondary and FE level, she has developed a particular interest in understanding the barriers and challenges students face during academic transitions and throughout their university experience, and how students can be best supported through these challenges. 

Simon Gamble, University of Bristol

Simon C. Gamble is the Head of the Study Skills service at University of Bristol and also tutor for the faculty of Health Sciences. He originally worked as a cancer research scientist at Imperial College London and Brunel University before moving into academic development tutoring. He has previously worked as a learning support tutor in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, where he developed his interest in supporting health sciences students in their academic development. 

References

Arden, B., Norris, J., Cole, S. and Gamble, S.C. (2024) ‘Digital notetaking in lectures: how students adapt to a multi-faceted university learning environment’, Cogent Education, 11(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2024.2373552

Davenport, E. (2022) ‘The writing social: identifying with academic writing practices amongst undergraduate students’, Investigations in university teaching and learning, 13. Available at: https://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/7741/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).

Gamble, S.C., Worth, T., Gilroy, P. and Newbold, S. (2020) ‘Students as co-authors of an academic development service: a case study of the study skills service at the University of Bristol’, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 26(2-4), pp.275–290. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2020.1784760.

Loughlin, C. (2023) ‘Student notetaking media in higher education’, Proceedings of the European Conference on e-Learning - ECEL 2023. University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa 26-27 October, pp.384-389. Available at: https://doi.org/10.34190/ecel.22.1.1608.

Marin, L. and Sturm, S. (2020). ‘Why aren’t you taking any notes?’ On note-taking as a collective gesture’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(13), pp.1399-1406. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1744131.

Mueller, P.A. Oppenheimer, D.M. (2014) ‘The pen is mightier than the keyboard: advantages of longhand over laptop note taking’, Psychological Science, 25, pp.1159–1168. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614524581.

Morehead, K., Dunlosky, J. and Rawson, K.A. (2019) ‘How much mightier is the pen than the keyboard for note-taking? A replication and extension of Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014)’, Educational Psychology Review, 31(3), pp.753-780. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09468-2.

University of Bristol Study Skills (2023) Now recruiting: Bristol Futures student advocates 2023/24. Available at: https://studyskills.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2023/03/02/now-recruiting-bristol-futures-advocates-2023-24/ (Accessed: 25 October 2024).

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Published

31-10-2024

How to Cite

Arden, R. and Gamble, S. (2024) “’Everyone is just so furiously typing’: supporting student choices around digital notetaking in university lectures”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (32). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi32.1429.

Issue

No. 32 (2024): Special Edition, ALDinHE Conference Proceedings and Reflections

Section

Conference Proceedings

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