Taking Images of Notes by Smartphone (Tin-S): A Comparative Study

Abstract

It has been observed that rather than taking notes in a lecture traditionally (pen-andpaper method -longhand), university students tend to take a photo of the notes on the white/smart board. The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent English for Specific Purposes (ESP) university students prefer taking images of notes by smartphone (TIN-S) to traditional note-taking (TNT), what strategies they employ in using these notes academically and whether the TIN-S has a positive effect on their test performance. The study includes two phases. In Phase 1, an exploratory qualitative approach was used, where ten participants were interviewed about their preferences, strategies and reasons for using their notes. In Phase 2, a quasi-experimental design was employed. The experimental group (N=21) used the TIN-S only while the control group (N=20) used the TNT only for a period of 4 weeks. The comparison of the test scores showed significant gains for the TIN-S group.