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This article was downloaded by: [TOBB Ekonomi Ve Teknoloji] On: 20 December 2014, At: 16:32 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Journal of Experimental Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjxe20 Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers Andrew D. Katayama a & Daniel H. Robinson b a West Virginia University b University of Texas at Austin Published online: 02 Apr 2010. To cite this article: Andrew D. Katayama & Daniel H. Robinson (2000) Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers, The Journal of Experimental Education, 68:2, 119-133, DOI: 10.1080/00220970009598498 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220970009598498 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers

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Page 1: Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers

This article was downloaded by: [TOBB Ekonomi Ve Teknoloji]On: 20 December 2014, At: 16:32Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

The Journal of ExperimentalEducationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjxe20

Getting Students “Partially”Involved in Note-Taking UsingGraphic OrganizersAndrew D. Katayama a & Daniel H. Robinson ba West Virginia Universityb University of Texas at AustinPublished online: 02 Apr 2010.

To cite this article: Andrew D. Katayama & Daniel H. Robinson (2000) GettingStudents “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers, The Journal ofExperimental Education, 68:2, 119-133, DOI: 10.1080/00220970009598498

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220970009598498

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

Page 2: Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers

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The Journal of Experimental Education, 2oW,68(2), 119-133

Getting Students “Partially” Involved in Note-Taking Using Graphic Organizers

ANDREW D. KATAYAMA West Virginia University

DANIEL H. ROBINSON University of Texas at Austin

ABSTRACT. Encoding benefits (DiVesta & Gray, 1972) of graphic-organizer and outline note-taking using spaced study and review (Robinson, Katayama, Dubois, & DeVaney, 1998) were investigated. In 2 40-min periods separated by 2 days, 117 undergraduates studied a chapter-length text along with a set of complete, partial, or skeletal graphic organizers or outlines. Two days later, the students reviewed their materials for 10 min and then completed factual and application tests. On the factu- al test, there was no effect for either study notes or amount of information. However, on the application test, graphic organizers were better than outlines and partial notes were better than complete notes. Having students take notes using partial graphic organizers may be preferable to giving them complete notes because of encoding benefits.

WHEN COLLEGE STUDENTS are required to read and study chapters of text, many take notes so they may review those notes at a later time. Furthermore, the information becomes more meaningful when students actively involve them- selves in taking notes (as opposed to not taking notes) than when the notes are provided to them by, for example, their instructor. Note-taking serves two impor- tant functions: encoding and external storage (DiVesta & Gray, 1972; Hartley, 1983; Kiewra, 1989). The encoding function posits that the activity of taking notes leads to better test performance than not taking notes. The external storage function posits that reviewing notes is better than not reviewing notes. For stu- dents to take full advantage of both functions, they must both take notes and review them. That seems simple enough, so what is the problem? The problem is that generally, students are poor note-takers, recording less than half of the criti-

Address correspondence to Andrew D. Katayama, Advanced Educational Studies, West Virginia University, Allen Hall 504-0, I? 0. Box 6122, Morgantown, WV 26505-6122. E-mail: [email protected]

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120 The Journal of Experimental Education

cal ideas (Hartley & Cameron, 1967). If students take their own notes (encoding function) and then review those notes, they miss out on the second function (external storage) because they are reviewing incomplete notes.

To compensate for students’ inadequate notes, the authors of several studies have examined the benefits of providing students with more complete notes (see Kiewra, 1989, for a review). Most students take notes in an outline format (Robinson & Kiewra, 1995). Simply providing students with complete outline notes has not proven to be the best instructional strategy. The most effective kinds of complete notes that have emerged from the research literature have used a spa- tial, rather than linear (i.e., outline), format. Dansereau and his colleagues (e.g., Hall & Sidio-Hall, 1994a; Hall & Sidio-Hall, 1994b; Hall, Dansereau, & Skag- gs, 1992; Lambiotte & Dansereau, 1992; Rewey, Dansereau, Dees, Skaggs, & Pitre, 1992; Wallace, West, Ware, & Dansereau, 1998; Wiegmann, Dansereau, McCagg, Rewey, & Pitre, 1992) have investigated the instructional potential of providing students with spatial displays of text called knowledge maps. A knowl- edge map is a node-link display that communicates relationships among ideas by using two-dimensional space. Novak and Gowin (1984) have also studied the benefits of similar displays called concept maps.

Another type of spatial display of text information is the graphic organizer (GO). GOs are similar to knowledge and concept maps in the sense that they use two-dimensional space to communicate concept relations. However, GOs do not use labeled links to show relationships among concepts but rather use only the relative spatial locations of words. Figures 1 and 2 contain two different types of notes that contain identical information: an outline and a GO. Several researchers have found that when students are provided with GOs to study along with text, they perform better on tests measuring knowledge of concept relations than if they study text with outlines (e.g., Alvermann, 1980, 1981; Kiewra, Dubois, Christian, & McShane, 1988; Kiewra, Kauffman, Robinson, Dubois, & Staley, in press; Robinson & Kiewra, 1995; Robinson & Schraw, 1994).

One reason that GOs, concept maps, and knowledge maps may be better than linear displays such as outlines and lists when provided to students as complete notes is that they may be stored in memory in a more spatial format. Recent stud- ies by Robinson and his colleagues (Robinson, Katayama, & Fan, 1996; Robin- son, Robinson, & Katayama, 1999) suggest that retrieving information after studying GOs interferes more with a concurrent spatial memory task than retriev- ing information after studying outlines. Storing text information in both spatial and verbal formats as opposed to just verbal formats may provide the student with an additional retrieval path for recalling the information. That conjoint (ver- bal and spatial) retention of text information facilitates recall because two routes are better than one (Kulhavy, Lee, & Caterino, 1985).

If GOs are indeed stored in memory more like pictures than propositional ver- bal information, then perhaps students are better able to search those representa-

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Katayama & Robinson 121

FIGURE 1. Example of a complete graphic organizer.

Parasomnia sleep disorders

Onset:

occurs:

Dumlion:

Alertness: Recall:

Causes:

Cures:

sleep terrors Sleepwalking Nightmares

Usually within 15-90 Usually within 3 4 hr Usually later in min of sleep of sleep sleep cycle Stage 4 of NREM- NREM sleep Stages 3 & 4 of REM sleep REM sleep Up to 20 min per Ranges from 5-30 min No consistency episode Hard to awaken Easily awakened Hard to awaken No recollection of Do not recall Content is content sleepwalking remembered Illness, high fever Mental stress & Mental stress &

fatigue individual’s common fears (e.g., snakes)

Maturing central No known cure No known cure nervous system in children

tions because of their efficient structure. Robinson and Skinner (1996) found that students could locate information needed to answer factual and inferential ques- tions faster if they searched GOs rather than outlines or text. Robinson and Skin- ner hypothesized that GOs are more search- and computationally efficient than linear displays, thus reducing the amount of searching needed to draw inferences.

In most studies in which GOs have been provided to students, the manner in which they may best be used in the classroom has not been investigated (see Robinson, 1998, for a review). Recently, however, a few researchers have explored how GOs may be used when students study chapter-length text and are provided with multiple GOs (Katayama & Crooks, 1999; Robinson & Kiewra, 1995; Robinson et al., 1998). Having students read and study and then review after a delay appears to be optimal for learning concept relations and transferring those relations by applying them in new contexts.

Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, that practice of providing GOs prevents students from taking advantage of the other function of note-taking: encoding. Of course, one could have students take their own notes but only allow them to review complete GOs. Students would quickly learn that their notes were not important and either stop taking them or take them in an even more incomplete manner. Thus, we are still left with the dilemma of how to get students to take advantage of both functions of note-taking.

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I FIGURE 2. Example of a complete outline.

Parasomnias

A. Sleep terrors 1. Onset: Usually within 15-90 min of sleep 2. Occurs: Stage 4 of NREM-REM sleep 3. Dur&on: Up to 20 min per episode 4. Alertness: Hard to awaken 5. Recall: No recollection of content

6. Causes: Illness, high fever 7 . Cures: Maturing central nervous system in children

B. Sleepwalking 1. Onset: Usually within 3-4 hr of sleep 2. Occurs: NREM sleep 3. Durufion: Ranges from 5-30 min 4. Alertness: Easily awakened 5. Recall: Do not recall sleepwalking 6. Causes: Mental stress and fatigue 7 . Cures: No known cure

I

C. Nightmares 1. Onset: Usually later in sleep cycle 2. Occurs: Stages 3 and 4 of REM sleep 3. Duration: No consistency 4. Alertness: Hard to awaken 5. Recall: Content is remembered 6. Causes: Mental stress and individual's common fears (e.g., snakes) 7 . Cures: No known cure

One approach to that problem has been to train students to take complete GO notes. That usually involves providing students with a skeletal GO framework and requiring them to search the text to fill in the missing information. Kiewra, Dubois, Christensen, Kim, and Lindberg (1989) had students take notes either conventionally (given blank sheets of paper and told to take notes) or by com- pleting skeletal frameworks of outlines or GOs. The skeletal notes contained only major topics and repeatable subtopics (examples of skeletal GO and outline notes are displayed in Figures 3 and 4). No advantages were found for GOs over out- lines or conventional notes. In fact, conventional notes were more beneficial than outlines or GOs when students only recorded notes and did not review them.

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Katayama & Robinson I23

FIGURE 3. Example of a skeletal graphic organizer.

Parasomnia sleep disorders

Sleep terrors Sleepwalking Nightmares

Onset:

Occurs:

Duration:

Alertness:

Recall:

Causes:

Cures:

Kiewra et al. ( 1989) suggested that taking notes on a skeletal framework required a high degree of selective attention and left few resources for understanding con- cept relations.

Kiewra et al. (1989) used only one GO with a 1,88 1-word text. Completing all the missing information in multiple skeletal GOs with a chapter-length text would be even more time-consuming and difficult for most students. That could be supported in part by cognitive load theory (CLT), according to which stu- dents’ performances tend to decline with increased cognitive loads (Sweller & Chandler, 1991). Sweller and Chandler argued that a presentation format that integrates diagram and text information should lighten cognitive load and direct attention appropriately. In the present study, we sought to lessen the demands (cognitive load) on students by providing them with partially complete GOs and outlines in which only half of the information was missing. We hoped that this activity would enable the students to benefit From the activity of recording their own notes with some informational structure so that they would experience less learning difficulty (Sweller, 1994; Tuovinen & Sweller, 1999). Figures 5 and 6 contain partially completed GO and outline notes used in the present study.

Alvermann (1986) presented a graphic organizer and left out key concepts so the students would have to complete the rest after they read the text. She found

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1 24 The Journal of Experimental Education

FIGURE 4. Example of a skeletal outline.

Parasomnias

A. Sleep terrors 1. Onset:

2. occurs:

3. Dumtion:

4. Alertness:

5. Recall:

6. Causes:

7. cures:

B. Sleepwalking 1. Onset:

2. occurs:

3. Duration:

4. Alertness:

5. Recall:

6. Causes:

7 . Cures:

C . Nightmares 1. Onset:

2. occurs:

3. Dum*on:

4. Alertness:

5. Recall:

6. Causes:

7 . Cures:

favorable effects for partial notes. Similarly, Anderson and Armbruster (1985) created worksheets with boxes containing phrases that were missing some key terms. As students read their social studies texts, they filled in the blanks and then cut out the boxes and arranged them in a sequence to show relationships. Final- ly, Russell, Caris, Harris, and Hendricson (1983) found that skeletal and partial outlines were beneficial for medical students; however, they did not use GOs.

Following the recommendations of Robinson et al. (1998), we used a delayed review procedure with chapter-length text and multiple GOs and outlines to

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Katavama & Robinson I25

FIGURE 5. Example of a partial graphic organizer.

Parasomnia sleep disorders

s Onset:

occurs:

Duration:

Alertness:

Recall:

Causes:

Cures:

Sleep terrors Sleepwalking Nightmares

Usually within 15-90 of sleep sleep cycle

Usually later in

NREM sleep

Ranges from 5-30 min No consistency

Hard to awaken

Do not recall Content is sleepwalking remembered

Mental stress & individual’s common fears (e.g., snakes)

Maturing central No known cure nervous system in children

allow students sufficient time to review the notes. We felt that the learning expe- rience in the present study more closely resembled what students actually do when they study text for an exam-read, take notes, and then review the notes later before the exam.

Our purpose in the present study was to investigate whether both the encoding and external storage functions of note-taking could be realized when, in prepara- tion for factual and application tests, students study a chapter-length text and are provided with multiple GOs or outlines containing all, some, or none of the important text information.

1. We predicted that the partial-notes groups would outperform the complete- notes groups because of the encoding function of note-taking (students would be more involved).

2. We also predicted that the partial-notes groups would outperform the skele- tal-notes groups because studying from partial notes is a less demanding task.

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126 The Journal of Experimental Education

FIGURE 6. Example of a partial outline.

Parasomnias

A. Sleep terrors

1. Onset: Usually within 15-90 min of sleep

2. occurs:

3. Duration:

4. Alertness: Hard to awaken

5 . Recall:

6. Causes: and

7 . Cures: Maturing central nervous system in children

B. Sleepwalking

1. Onset:

2. Occurs: NREM sleep

3. Duration: Ranges from 5-30 min

4. Alertness:

5. Recall: Do not recall sleepwalking

6. Causes: and

7 . Cures: No known cure

C. Nightmares

1. Onset: Usually later in sleep cycle

2. occurs:

3. Duration: No consistency

4. Alertness:

5 . Recall: Content is remembered

6. Causes: Mental stress & individual’s common fears (e.g., snakes)

7. Cures:

In short, we believed the partial-notes condition would provide ‘‘just the right amount” of student involvement in note-taking-not too much as with skeletal notes and not too little as with complete notes. We were unsure whether that dif- ference would appear on the factual test or the application test. None of the pre- vious studies using partial notes have used application measures.

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Katavama & Robinson 127

3. We predicted that for the complete-notes conditions, the students who reviewed GOs would outperform those who reviewed outlines on the application test but not on the factual test. That prediction is consistent with results reported by Robinson and Kiewra (1995) and Robinson et al. (1998). 4. We predicted that for the partial-notes conditions, the students who reviewed

GOs would outperform those who reviewed outlines on the application test but not on the factual test. We based that prediction solely on our belief that because we were using a delayed review procedure, in which all students would have an opportunity to review their completed notes before testing, GOs would exhibit the same advantage over outlines as was observed by Robinson et al. (1998).

5. Because no differences between GO and outline conditions have been found in previous research using skeletal notes on either factual or application measures, we predicted no differences between the two skeletal groups on either test.

We used a 2 x 3 (Study Note Format: GO vs. outline x Amount of Information: complete vs. partial vs. skeletal) factorial design to test our hypotheses.

Method Participants

One hundred seventeen students from two undergraduate education courses at a large state university in the South volunteered to participate in exchange for course credit. Of the 117 students, 65 were female and 52 were male. The stu- dents’ ages ranged from 18 to 40, with a median age of 24.

Materials

The materials used in this study included a chapter-length text, six sets of study notes, two tests, and a questionnaire. The text covered the topic of “sleep disorders”; we modified it to address six specific types of sleep disorders. The text was taken from Adams’ (1981) Abnormal Psychology textbook (typically used for undergraduate psychology courses), contained approximately 3,500 words, and was distributed on eight, single-spaced pages. The content of the text was not required content for the class.

A 30-item, four-option, multiple-choice test measured students’ factual knowl- edge of information explicitly stated in the text. An example of a factual item is presented below.

Individuals who experience vivid and deep dreams and are able to remem- ber them explicitly have most likely experienced what type of sleep? a. Slow wave b. Deep wave c. Paradoxical d. REM

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I28 The Journal of Experimental Education

We also administered a 10-item, matching test of application to test the stu- dents’ ability to apply knowledge from the text to novel examples. The test list- ed the names of 12 sleep disorders (a-I) that could be used once, more than once, or not at all. An example of an application item is presented below.

Jake, a forty year old man, couldn’t fall asleep last night because it was the night before Easter. Every Easter reminds him of his childhood, when he’d stay up trying to spot the Easter bunny. The cause of his inability to fall asleep as an adult is most likely due to this disorder.

The six sets of study notes included complete outlines, partial outlines, skele- tal outlines, complete GOs, partial GOs, and skeletal GOs. Examples of each type of notes are displayed in Figures 1-6. Complete sets of notes contained all pertinent information based on the subordinate topics within each sleeping dis- order (e.g., narcolepsy, hypersomnia, and sleep apnea are all subordinates to associative sleep disorders). For the partial notes, we systematically deleted one half of the notes from the complete sets. For example, on the first page of each set of notes, we deleted the definitions for the first and third sleep disorders but provided the definition for the second sleep disorder. Below the definitions for the three sleep disorders were examples of each sleep disorder. We deleted the example of the second sleep disorder, but left the examples for the first and third sleep disorders. On the second page of notes, we deleted the definition for the second sleep disorder and left the definitions for the first and third sleep disor- ders. Alternating from the first page, we deleted the example for the second sleep disorder and provided examples of the first and third sleep disorders. Therefore, every other “piece” in the notes was systematically deleted. On the skeletal notes, no notes were provided, only categories and attribute headings for each catego- ry. The students were expected to complete all the missing notes.

Procedure

The experiment was conducted in the students’ classrooms during three regu- larly scheduled, 50-min class periods. On the 1st day, the students were seated at their desks and the experimenter explained the purpose of the study. After instructions were given, the students were randomly assigned to one of six con- ditions by receiving a 9-in. x 12-in. envelope that contained the text and a set of one of the six types of notes. The students were given approximately 40 min to read the text and perform their assigned study activity (Le., study their complete notes or complete and then study their partial or skeletal notes). The two com- plete-notes groups were given additional written directions stating that they may take additional notes on a provided blank sheet of paper. The students were then given 40 min to read and complete their notes. At the end of the period, the stu- dents were asked to put their materials inside their envelopes, were instructed not to discuss the study with anyone, and were dismissed.

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Katayama & Robinson 129

Two days later, at the beginning of the class period, the students were given their envelopes and told to continue their study activities for approximately 40 min. At the end of the class period, the students were again asked to put their materials back inside their envelopes and instructed not to discuss the study with anyone outside of class. Envelopes were then collected by the experimenter, and the students were dismissed. Two days later, when the students received their envelopes, they were instructed to review their materials (text and study notes) as they typically would for a test. After the 10-min review period had expired, the students were instructed to put their materials back inside their envelopes and to place the envelopes under their seats. The students then engaged in a testing ses- sion that lasted approximately 35 min. At the end of the period, the students turned in their materials and tests. The tests were scored using a predetermined key.

Results

Separate 2 x 3 (Study Notes: GO vs. outline x Amount of Information: com- plete vs. partial vs. skeletal) factorial analyses of variance were conducted on the factual and application test scores at the a = .05 level of significance. The assumption of homogeneity of variance was supported for both the factual and application tests according to the results of Bartlett-Box F tests.

Table 1 contains the means and standard deviations for each of the six groups on both the factual and application tests. For the factual test, the main effect of study notes was not significant, F( 1, 11 1) = 2.01, MSE = 27.06, p = .16. Q p e of study notes (GOs or outlines) did not affect the students’ scores. The main effect of amount of information was also not significant, F(2, 11 1) = .04, p > .99. The amount of information (complete, partial, or skeletal) did not affect the students’

TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations for the Six Groups on the Factual and Application Tests

Group

Factual test Application test

M SD M SD n

Outline Complete 21.84 5.45 6.11 1.29 19 Partial 20.33 5.60 7.67 1.32 21 Skeletal 21.80 4.69 7.40 I .54 20

Graphic organizer Complete 22.06 6.83 7.28 1.53 18 Partial 23.68 4.41 9.26 0.81 19 Skeletal 22.25 3.85 7.95 1.19 20

Total sample 2 I .97 5.18 7.62 1.57 117

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130 The Journal of Exoerinienral Education

scores. Finally, the Study Notes x Amount of Information interaction was not sig- nificant, F(2, 11 1) = 1.1 I , p = .33.

For the application test, the main effect of study notes was significant, F( 1, 1 1 1) = 2 1.09, MSE = 1.69, p c .01. The students who studied GOs (M = 8.18, SD = 1.44) performed better than those who studied outlines (M = 7.08, SD = 1 S 2 ) . The main effect of amount of information was also significant, F(2, 11 1) = 17.47, p c .01. We used Tukey’s HSD test to follow up that effect. The students who studied par- tial notes (M = 8.43, SD = 1.36) scored higher than those who studied complete notes (M = 6.68, SD = 1.51). The Study Notes x Amount of Information interac- tion was not significant, F(2, 11 1) = 1 . 6 4 , ~ = .20. Nevertheless, the largest advan- tage for GOs over outlines occurred between the two partial-notes groups, where- as the smallest difference occurred between the skeletal groups.

Discussion

Our purpose in the present study was to investigate possible encoding benefits of GO and outline note-taking by measuring college students’ performance on factual and application tests. The students were provided with a chapter-length text and a set of either GOs or outlines that contained different amounts of infor- mation: complete, partial, or skeletal. Complete notes contained all of the rele- vant text information and thus did not require any note-taking, although the stu- dents in that group were permitted to take their own notes on additional blank sheets of paper. Partial notes contained only about half of the relevant informa- tion, whereas skeletal notes contained none of the relevant information, only headings. The students in those two groups had to search the text to find the miss- ing information and write it in the empty spaces.

No differences among the six study-notes conditions were observed on the fac- tual test. Those null findings are consistent with those observed by Kiewra et al. (1988), Robinson and Kiewra (1993, and Robinson et al. (1998). It appears that if the goal is factual learning, then type of study notes and amount of informa- tion provided do not matter. Most would agree that text application is a more val- ued outcome for students than knowledge of facts.

Our first prediction-that the partial-notes groups would outperform the com- plete-notes groups-was supported on the application test. That advantage of partial over complete notes was likely due to an encoding effect, in which stu- dents learn more because they are more involved in text processing. That encod- ing effect can be understood within the framework of generative processes in text comprehension (Peper & Mayer, 1978, 1986; Wittrock, 1990). Therefore, when students are required to become actively involved in generating some of the information they will study later, the information seems to have more meaning than if the notes are merely provided for them to study. Actively generating notes results in better text comprehension.

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Our second prediction-that the partial-notes groups would outperform the skeletal-notes groups-was not supported. We expected that the skeletal-notes condition would be too demanding, resulting in less text processing than the par- tial-notes condition. The difference between the partial- and skeletal-notes con- ditions was larger for the GO groups than for the outline groups, although not sta- tistically larger (see Table 1). Replications with a larger sample may detect whether that interaction may emerge or whether an overall partial > skeletal advantage exists, but the present study was too underpowered to detect it.

Our third prediction was that on the application test, students studying com- plete GOs would outperform those who studied complete outlines. Our fourth prediction was that on the application test, students studying partial GOs would outperform those who studies partial outlines. Both of those predictions were supported by the significant main effect of GOs > outlines on the application test.

Finally, our fifth prediction-that no differences would be observed between the two skeletal conditions-was not supported. Obviously, a significant Study Notes x Amount of Information interaction would have allowed us to test Pre- dictions 3-5. Once again, that null finding may simply be due to insufficient sam- ple size. Future replications should shed light on whether the differences among the six conditions may be statistically and practically significant. The GO > out- line main effect is consistent with previous research showing advantages for GO notes over outline notes (e.g.. Robinson & Schraw, 1994).

Also consistent with previous research (e.g., Kiewra et al., 1989), the students who completed skeletal notes did not perform better than those who viewed com- plete notes. That finding suggests that having students complete skeletal notes may be too demanding for them to experience any encoding benefits from that activity. Completing partial notes, on the other hand, in which about half of the information is provided, serving as examples, appears to be advantageous because students are able to benefit from encoding advantages and not be over- whelmed by the task. Further research is needed, obviously, to test our assump- tion about the relative difficulty of completing skeletal versus partial notes.

As we had predicted, there may be an optimal amount of student effort required for encoding benefits of note-taking to appear. Whether our partial notes that contained about half of the information were “just the right amount” may be irrelevant. Our feeling is that partial, but not skeletal, notes were more effective than complete notes for one chapter of text because the students were unfamiliar with the task of completing skeletal notes. One of the limitations of the present study, however, was that it did not specifically assess how familiar students were with GOs, let alone constructing them. Hence, our results cannot empirically prove or even suggest that the skeletal notes were “overwhelming” for students to construct and study. Therefore, in future studies, we recommend investigating the possible benefits of training students to take skeletal GO notes. Requiring stu- dents to complete GO notes over an entire course covering approximately sever-

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a1 chapters of text might serve as an effective training device. For example, the first chapter might provide students with a set of GO notes that are approximate- ly 90% completed. Then with succeeding chapters, the GO notes become gradu- ally “more skeletal” in the sense that by the last chapter, students would be required to complete skeletal notes.

In short, there seem to be advantages for graphically organized notes over out- line notes and for partial notes over complete notes. We recommend that educa- tors consider providing partial GO notes as an activity for students if the goal is text application.

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