Enhancing the Retention of Lectured-Information for Higher Education Students through Note-Taking Skills

Abstract

Note-taking is an important skill to be taught to the learners so that it can be used as a tool for them to perceive and retrieve the lectured information; especially during Theory courses dealing with intense information. Keeping this in mind I tailored my study which could examine whether Note-Taking, Note-making and Note-reviewing can improve the retention skills of my learners and whether these retention skills can be later used by them to recall the retained–information. I tried to measure these retention skills by using customized retention tests to observe the resulted pattern. The research question that guided my study was ―How efficiently the Notes-Taking, Notes-Making and Notes-Reviewing can improve the short term retention of lecture-information for the learners in Higher Education at lower level of academic program (Interior design) with respect to free recall, accuracy and comprehension type of questions ?‖. This qualitative research uses Primary data collected from 22 students. Harmonious to some of the studies in the past, this study reaffirmed the importance and vital impact of Notes taking and reviewing on the short term retention of received information. In addition a pattern was revealed that Notes making enhances comprehension skills and notes reviewing enhances accuracy skills.