Effective Note-taking and Its Role in Learning Undergraduate Introductory Physics Courses

Taking notes during lectures is one of the required skills, among many others, that students need (i) to master the topic covered in the lecture, (ii) to actively engage in the learning process with minimal to no distractions, (iii) to retain learned knowledge and skills for a longer time, and (iv) to secure a better grade. To learn the role of note-taking in learning undergraduate-level introductory algebra-based physics courses, we present a comparative study of students’ achievement in two minority-serving universities, namely, Fayetteville State University and The University of North Carolina at Pembroke (i) when students were taught effective note-taking strategies, motivated them to prepare notes and let them use their self-prepared notes in timed assignments and exams versus (ii) no note-taking scheme was implemented, keeping all other conditions the same. The no-note-taking scheme was used in the first introductory algebra-based physics course, while the note-taking scheme was used in the second introductory algebra-based physics course. Students’ scores in the final exam and the aggregated grade accounting for all grading components are taken as measurement tools. Analysis shows that effective note-taking helps students secure better letter grades.

INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW: This study was reviewed and approved by the Human Rights in Research Committee (HRRC) at Fayetteville State University with the assigned IRB #2026-20 under "Exempt Status".