Note-Taking Techniques for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

This article provides a synthesis of note-taking research among students with learning disabilities or other high-incidence disabilities. A search of the professional literature between 1980 and 2010 yielded nine intervention studies, which were evaluated either in terms of effect size or percentage of nonoverlapping data. The studies examined three different notetaking techniques used by students during lectures and included 125 students of varying disabilities. Findings revealed that students who used note-taking techniques were effective at increasing scores on measures of achievement and the quality and quantity of notes recorded. Limitations and implications of note-taking techniques for content-area classrooms are discussed.

Impact of instructor-provided notes on the learning and exam performance of medical students in an organ system-based medical curriculum

“…We provided partial guided notes before class and allowed students to review the material, assisting with their ability to comprehend the material during the lecture to better remember and incorporate the material into long-term storage. 23 Providing partial guided notes decreases the amount of time students have to think about the information being presented or read and improve the overall organization, accuracy and completeness of their notes. 24 , 25…”

Theories-based Inclusive Education Practices

“…Cognitivism-based inclusive education practices are implemented by applying different instructional approaches focused on learning activities, such as note-taking (Boyle & Rivera, 2012), underlining (Swanson, Orosco, & Lussier, 2014), summarizing (Wittrock & Alesandrini, 1990), writing to learn, outlining and mapping, and use of the PQ4R method (Slavin, 2009). The use of these instructional approaches has shown positive results among students with special needs in general education classrooms.…”

List Memory in Young Adults With Language Learning Disability

“…In addition to self-testing, findings also lend support to the need for guided note-taking for these LLD students (for a review, see Boyle & Rivera, 2012). Research has demonstrated that note-taking during lectures is critical to understanding and retaining information (Kobayashi, 2005).…”