Copies of notes taken during a lecture were obtained from first-year psychology students, and the relations examined between measures derived from these (the number of points recorded, the number of words written, and the number of words per point) and a number of variables measuring personality and approach to studying. Three variables were found to be related to the measures derived from the notes: older students, those scoring high on strategic learning (strategy component) and those scoring high on surface learning (motivational component), both measured by questions derived from Biggs (1979), produced longer notes and recorded more of the important points in the lecture. The results suggest that relations between approaches to studying and specific study behaviour are not straightforward and require more detailed investigation.Research on effective study skills has examined both self-reported individual differences in approaches to studying and some of the variables contributing to the effectiveness of components such as reading, note-taking, reviewing, and time-scheduling. However, there is no detailed research examining relations between the selfreported approaches to studying and actual behaviour in learning situations such as reading, listening to lectures, and revising. Research on note-taking, for example, has concentrated on how note-taking (usually from a lecture) may aid performance in a subsequent test of retention of material from the lecture. It has, in the main, neglected individual differences in approaches to note-taking in the normal lecture situation and how these may be related to other individual differences and to the effectiveness of the note-taking process. The present study focuses on individual differences in note-taking in a free situation, and the relation between such differences and more genera1 differences in approach to studying which are known to be related to academic performance. It is intended that subsequent work will examine more closely other components involved in the whole process of identifying information, recording it in notes, reviewing it and reproducing or using it. APPROACHES TO STUDYINGThree main approaches to studying have been distinguished in the work of several different researchers on individual differences (e.g. Marton and Saljo, 1976a;Pask,
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