NOTETAKING STRATEGIES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO PERFORMANCE ON LISTENING COMPREHENSION AND COMMUNICATIVE ASSESSMENT TASKS

Abstract

Utilizing a pre- and posttest research design, with an instructional intervention of good practices in notetaking, the notes taken by examinees during a computer-based listening comprehension test prior to and following the instructional intervention were examined for particular notetaking strategies. Questionnaires probed perceptions of the frequency of use and helpfulness of the notetaking strategies. Also investigated were relationships between the strategies and performance on a multiple-choice listening comprehension measure and integrated listening/writing and listening/speaking tasks and whether the brief instructional intervention affected examinees' notes and performance on the three tasks. Results showed that examinees made little use of efficiency and marked organizational notetaking strategies. While the intervention had no effect on examinees' notetaking strategies or on their task performance, students' posttest notetaking strategies and task performance were significantly related to their pretest notetaking strategies and task performance. Moreover, notetaking and test performance were moderately related: Two notetaking strategies that most consistently related to performance on all three tasks were the number of content words in the notes and the number of test answers recorded in the notes. Efficiency strategies represented a cognitively complex category worthy of further investigation.