Reorganization and the recall of prose.

Abstract

The hypothesis that reorganizing written material while taking notes would aid free recall was evaluated in two experiments with high school juniors. Eighty-two subjects read a passage on anthropology organized either by society or by topic. They were then instructed to take notes either (a) in the same order as the material was presented or (b) by reorganizing the information according to specified categories. Free recall was higher for subjects who reorganized the material. In a second experiment with 146 subjects, the effect persisted when the categories were given to subjects in all conditions. Subjects of average verbal aptitude benefited from reorganizing to a greater extent than did subjects of higher verbal aptitude. The results were discussed in terms of the encoding variability hypothesis.

A review of note-taking: The encoding-storage paradigm and beyond

“…A study by Shimmerlick and Nolan (1976) compared the relative effectiveness of two forms of review. Subjects either listed or reorganized previously acquired textual information.…”

Notetaking and review: The research and its implications

“…From these prose studies (Annis, 1979;Schultz and DiVesta, 1972;Shimmerlick and Nolan, 1976) and from a single lecture study (Howe, 1977), it is apparent that organized presentations facilitate notetaking and recall, that notetaking encourages organization, and that organization during notetaking increases achievement.…”

“…Apparently, notetakers can be induced to take notes that deliberately reorganize prose material that is already well organized (Shimmerlick and Nolan, 1976). Given a passage either organized by concepts or by attributes, students oriented to organize their notes into the alternate framework recalled more than students who recorded notes sequentially without adopting the alternate framework.…”

“…Students taking notes from organized material are likely to record notes of higher structural importance and to perhaps transform ideas into an alternate framework. To increase the probability of recall, instructors can orient learners to reorganize their material by providing them with materials that encourage reorganization (Shimmerlick and Nolan, 1976) or by designating the alternate framework (Howe, 1977). With lecture presentations, it would probably be advisable to provide segments throughout the lecture for active reorganization or simply suggest that it be done following the lecture.…”

Field Dependent/Independent Cognitive Style Research Revisited: Do Field Dependent Readers Read Differently Than Field Independent Readers?

“…Two ways of compensating for this lack might include prompting the dependents to consciously apply their own structure in a particular way or to add additional structure to the text which the reader can pick up on. In short, forcing students to reorganize or structure the text may lead to increased comprehension (Shimmerlik and Nolan, 1976), especially for field dependents.…”