Notetaking and on-screen learning Preliminary results

S201 have adopted a simple note-taking tool Students take notes on the page they are studying The notes are stored on our servers. We provide two types of notes boxes: “study notes” boxes at the bottom of every page

S201 have adopted a simple note-taking tool Students take notes on the page they are studying Notes are stored on our servers. We provide two types of notes boxes: “Study notes” boxes at the bottom of every page “Response boxes” for embedded questions

Student notes are collated Student notes are saved on the page where they are written and in “Combined Notes” pages at the end of each week. These collated notes are searchable and can be printed or saved as pdfs. Students can choose how the collated notes are displayed.

Integration with assessment Students are told in week 1: In order to enable you to take appropriately focused notes as you study the module, you should be aware that Part two (of the EMA) will ask you to discuss: Examples drawn from the S201 Topics in which, in your opinion: decision-making was influenced by science. decision-making was not sufficiently influenced by science

Student uptake

Student uptake

Headlines on average students make 14 entries per week in the first two topics students make on average 20 entries per week, whilst in the last topic they make on average 10 entries per week on average 46% of registered students are using the tool in any one week. Over the whole module around 20 students made 300 or more entries, with a small number approaching 800 entries in the note boxes. There was a long tail of students who did not use the tool very much.

Correlation with achievement Does intensity of note-taking correlate with grades achieved? Correlation of 0.35-0.65 are significant (Borg, 1963) Correlation between tool use and achievement all students, n= 97 >150 entries, n= 34 >200 entries, n= 26 >300 entries, n= 20 Total for EMA 0.150 0.214 0.400 0.289 Continuous Assessment 0.226 0.295 0.484 0.318 Essay: KU1 scientific understanding 0.118 0.302 0.442 0.198 Essay: KU3 how science is communicated 0.073 0.054 0.304 0.424 Essay: CS1 gather, analyse, evaluate -0.068 0.134 0.402 0.327 Essay: KS3 communication skills 0.144 0.233 0.472 0.415 ESSAY Total 0.124 0.274 0.488 0.333

Next steps Interview students to find out: more about their perceptions of the tool what alternatives notetaking strategies(if any) they use Qualitatively analyse the notes that students have taken in the first two presentations, and look for correlations with achievement. (This all assumes that we get the appropriate ethical permissions)

j.s.baxter@open.ac.uk