DO STUDENT NOTE-SHEETS INCREASE QUIZ SCORES?

Students in an introductory geology class are encouraged to take notes on the textbook chapters they were assigned to read and are allowed to use a single page (double-sided) of notes per chapter when they take the quiz on that chapter. However, not all of them choose to do so for every quiz. Of the 62 students I observed, all of them brought a sheet of notes to at least one quiz, but only 27 (43.5%) brought note-sheets to all ten quizzes. These were multiple-choice quizzes, each with ten questions, taken by students individually.

If creating a note-sheet improved a student’s understanding of the material, students who took a greater percentage of their quizzes with note-sheets should have higher average quiz scores than students with lower percentages of note-sheet use. However, there was no visible correlation between these variables. A third of the students who had an average quiz score below 70% brought note-sheets to every quiz. Part of the problem is that the students varied in their ability to read the textbook. Many students could not distinguish important concepts from trivia; others could not apply the concepts or did not know how to take notes. Some note-sheets were completely covered in six-point font with no white space. Others were simply lists of terms and definitions copied word-for-word from the textbook’s glossary.

The average quiz-score and the average percentage of note-sheet use varied significantly among sections. For two of the three sections, the average score for each quiz was moderately correlated with the percentage of students who had brought note-sheets to that quiz. The third section had the lowest average score for all quizzes and for note-sheet participation, and showed no correlation between the two.

Taking notes on the reading may not help students master the material as individuals, but it may signal to colleagues that they are trying to study the material. The students take a group quiz with two or three teammates after the individual quiz. Students who do not have note-sheets with them may appear unprepared, causing their teammates to criticize them or to decide to move to another group. But bringing a note-sheet to the quiz is just a start; a motivated group will expect each teammate to contribute explanations for the answers they have chosen on the quiz, creating pressure to study.