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Note-Taking With Computers:
Exploring Alternative Strategies for Improved Recall
Dung C. Bui, Joel Myerson, and Sandra Hale
Washington University in St. Louis
Three experiments examined note-taking strategies and their relation to recall. In Experiment 1,
participants were instructed either to take organized lecture notes or to try and transcribe the lecture, and
they either took their notes by hand or typed them into a computer. Those instructed to transcribe the
lecture using a computer showed the best recall on immediate tests, and the subsequent experiments
focused on note-taking using computers. Experiment 2 showed that taking organized notes produced the
best recall on delayed tests. In Experiment 3, however, when participants were given the opportunity to
study their notes, those who had tried to transcribe the lecture showed better recall on delayed tests than
those who had taken organized notes. Correlational analyses of data from all 3 experiments revealed that
for those who took organized notes, working memory predicted note-quantity, which predicted recall on
both immediate and delayed tests. For those who tried to transcribe the lecture, in contrast, only
note-quantity was a consistent predictor of recall. These results suggest that individuals who have poor
working memory (an ability traditionally thought to be important for note-taking) can still take effective
notes if they use a note-taking strategy (transcribing using a computer) that can help level the playing
field for students of diverse cognitive abilities.
Keywords: note-taking, note quantity and quality, computers, individual differences, working memory
Note-taking has long been linked to positive test performance
(e.g., Armbruster, 2000;Crawford, 1925b), and this relationship is
not lost on students, who acknowledge that lecture note-taking is
a crucial component of the educational experience (Dunkel &
Davy, 1989). In fact, lecturing constitutes nearly 83% of college
instructors’ teaching methods (Wirt et al., 2001), and nearly all
college students take notes in class (Palmatier & Bennett, 1974),
even when they are not explicitly told to do so by the instructor
(Williams & Eggert, 2002). Researchers have identified two pri-
mary ways in which classroom note-taking is beneficial: Encoding
and external storage (Di Vesta & Gray, 1972). The encoding
benefit (also termed the process benefit) refers to the learning that
results from the act of taking notes, whereas the external storage
benefit (also termed the product benefit) refers to the benefit that
comes from studying the notes. Furthermore, Kiewra (1985)
pointed out that utilizing both aspects of note-taking in conjunction
provides a more potent learning tool than either aspect on its own
(e.g., Fisher & Harris, 1973;Kiewra, DuBois, Christensen, Kim, &
Lindberg, 1989).
Recent advancements in technology have led to more computers
being introduced into the classroom and incorporated into stu-
dents’ learning experiences, and the availability of portable com-
puters has resulted in a steady increase in the percentage of college
students who own one (89%; Smith & Caruso, 2010). Research has
compared typing speed to writing speed and found evidence that
proficient typists can type faster than they can handwrite (e.g.,
Brown, 1988), and that this pattern emerges in children as young
as sixth grade (Rogers & Case-Smith, 2002). Thus, it would appear
that for many students, portable computers can increase their
transcription speed when they take lecture notes.
The Relation Between Working Memory and
Note-Taking
Despite its benefits, lecture note-taking is a complex and cog-
nitively demanding skill that requires comprehending what the
instructor is saying, holding that information in memory, organiz-
ing and paraphrasing it, and then writing it down before it is
forgotten, all while attending to the ongoing lecture. When note-
taking skill is framed as a composition of more basic cognitive
abilities, it is clear that one reason why students’ notes vary among
one another is likely because of individual differences in these
lower-order abilities.
One ability hypothesized to be important in note-taking is work-
ing memory (e.g., Olive & Piolat, 2002), the ability to temporarily
hold and manipulate a limited amount of information (Baddeley,
1986). While some studies report a correlation between working
memory and note-taking (e.g., Kiewra & Benton, 1988;Kiewra,
Benton, & Lewis, 1987), other studies do not (e.g., Cohn, Cohn, &
Bradley, 1995;Peverly et al., 2007). It is possible that these mixed
results are due to variability in the note-taking strategies that
students naturally use. Without explicit instructions, students may
choose strategies that vary in the extent to which they rely on
working memory, potentially masking a correlation between work-
ing memory and note-taking.
This article was published Online First October 8, 2012.
Dung C. Bui, Joel Myerson, and Sandra Hale, Department of Psychol-
ogy, Washington University in St. Louis.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dung C.
Bui, Department of Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis, St.
Louis, MO 63130. E-mail: dcbui@wustl.edu
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Journal of Educational Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association
2013, Vol. 105, No. 2, 299–309 0022-0663/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0030367
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