Despite the importance of good lecture notes to test performance, very little is known about the cognitive processes that underlie effective lecture note taking. The primary purpose of the 2 studies reported (a pilot study and Study 1) was to investigate 3 processes hypothesized to be significantly related to quality of notes: transcription fluency, verbal working memory, and the ability to identify main ideas. A 2nd purpose was to replicate the findings from previous research that notes and verbal working memory were significantly related to test performance. Results indicated that transcription fluency was the only predictor of quality of notes and that quality of notes was the only significant predictor of test performance. The findings on transcription fluency extend those of the children's writing literature to indicate that transcription fluency is related to a variety of writing outcomes and suggest that interventions directed at transcription fluency may enhance lecture note taking.

Self-regulation supposedly plays a central role in memory and learning, especially for adults. Research using simple materials has found that adults are skilled self-regulators. Research using difficult materials has found the opposite. Using difficult materials, the authors attempted to improve college students' self-regulation by allowing extended study time before taking a test. The authors also examined whether background knowledge and note-taking strategies would be positively related to self-regulation. Results indicated that college students were not good at self-regulation, background knowledge and note taking were not related to self-regulation, and note taking and background knowledge were generally better predictors of test performance than self-regulation. Results imply that test performance is more related to note taking and background knowledge than to self-regulation.Competent, self-regulated learners are hypothesized to have the knowledge and strategies needed to learn and remember information and to have the skill to effectively apply these resources to specific learning and memory tasks (Brown,

Handwriting speed is important to the quantity and quality of children's essays. This article reviews research on adult essay writing and lecture note taking that extends this finding to adult writers. For both children and adults, research suggests that greater transcription speed increases automaticity of word production, which in turn lessens the burden on working memory (WM) and enables writers to use the limited capacity of WM for the metacognitive processes needed to create good reader-friendly prose. These findings suggest that models of writing, which emphasize the metacognitive components of writing primarily, should be expanded to include transcription (handwriting automaticity and spelling). The article also evaluates the implications of fluent handwriting to WM, given that even the most fluent handwriting can consume some WM resources and recent research and theory has highlighted the importance of WM to quality writing. Finally, the implications of handwriting and WM to assessment and instruction are discussed.

SummaryA previous investigation of the cognitive processes underlying note‐taking found that handwriting speed was the only significant predictor of notes, and notes were the only significant predictor of test performance. This investigation sought to extend these results by evaluating the effects of handwriting speed, language comprehension, two measures of working memory (complex span and executive attention) and an outline on note‐taking and test performance (written summary). Participants were randomly assigned to an outline or not no‐outline group (Group) to determine the effect of an outline on handwriting speed. Results from a path analysis indicated that handwriting speed, language comprehension and Group were significantly related to notes. The relationship between the independent variables and the written summary was not completely mediated by notes as in the previous investigation. Notes, Group and language comprehension were related to the written summary. The implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Guided by Perry and Weinstein's (1998) conceptual model of school adjustment, first-generation Chinese-American adolescents' school adjustment was compared with that of Mainland Chinese and European American adolescents in two domains of functioning, academic (attitudes to school and teacher; their sense of academic adequacy) and behavioral (depression, anxiety and social stress), using the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC). Results indicated that Chinese-American adolescents reported more negative attitudes toward teachers than European American and Mainland Chinese students, had more negative perceptions of the school environment than students in Mainland China, and reported more feelings of inadequacy in academics than European American students. Chinese-American adolescents reported higher levels of depression and social stress than the other two groups, and more anxiety than Mainland Chinese students. Feelings of academic inadequacy were related to depression, anxiety and social stress for all three cultural groups. In addition, Chinese-American adolescents reported that they did not trust their teachers and their peers who were not Chinese-American, and felt that adults at school and home did not understand them. This feeling coupled with their fear, anger and frustration at being bullied frequently in school could be related to Chinese-American adolescents' negative perception of school and teachers. Implications of the study are discussed.

No abstract

No abstract

Despite the importance of notes to test performance, very little is known about the cognitive variables related to notetaking, especially text notes. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the contributions of transcription fluency, reading comprehension, verbal working memory, executive attention, and background knowledge to the quality of text notes. A secondary purpose was to evaluate the relationship of all of the other aforementioned variables to three test types to determine if notes are more important to some test types than others: a free recall essay and two types of multiple choice items: memory items and inference items. Results indicated that transcription fluency was the best predictor of notes (reading comprehension was also significant predictor), which extends previous findings on the importance of transcription fluency to lecture notes. Notes' were the best predictor of the essay and the memory multiple choice items but not the inference items.