Proceedings of The 8th Annual International Conference (AIC) on Social Sciences, Syiah Kuala University 2018

September 12-14, 2018, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

Developing Students’ Note Taking Skills through

Cornell Format

Yuniarti and *Ika Kana Trisnawati

Universitas Muhammadiyah Aceh, Indonesia

*
Corresponding author: ika.arraniry@gmail.com

Abstract

Note taking is a type of activity that is inseparable in the academic

settings; for example, making short notes on a lecture, creating a list of
to-do assignments, or re-writing ideas from a textbook. However, these
note taking activities are often done without any particular system since
the majority of Indonesian students have little knowledge on how to
properly take notes. In this study, the aim was to develop students’ note
taking ability by introducing them to a note taking format, commonly
known as Cornell notes. The study employed two-cycle class action
research to implement the Cornell format to a total of 15 students of
English Education Department of University of Muhammadiyah Aceh. The
students were asked to take notes by following the procedure in the Cornell
format, in which it required the students to write in short
phrases/sentences in four blank columns: heading, cue, note taking, and
summary. The students’ note taking results were compared to a note
taking criteria adapted from AVID, which used a four-scale category.
Findings indicated that, in general, ten out of 15 students were in the “fair”
category and four were in the “good” category, while only one was “poor”,
in taking proper notes by using the Cornell format in cycle I. These results
further improved in the cycle II wherein five students had been in the
“excellent” category, seven reached the “good” category, and the
remaining three were “fair”. The students were eventually able to do
appropriate note taking by using the Cornell format, and this suggests that
the students can make a good habit in note taking if they apply a correct
method. Further, they can also make a summary out of a long written text
so that they can easily review and learn a topic better.

Keywords: Note taking, Cornell Format.

Introduction
In the classroom setting, note taking is integral in the students’ life as they often
record or transfer the information from lectures or textbooks (Williams & Eggert,
2002; Piolat, Olive & Kellogg, 2005; Boyle, 2010; Broe, 2013; Friedman, 2014).
Therefore, the students are expected to possess good note taking skills considering
that lectures and textbooks are two major sources of learning (Boyle, 2010).

The ability to take notes appropriately will lead the students to have effective notes
for learning (Friedman, 2014) because, most often than not, the notes help the
students better understand what has been said during lectures and keep the
information for the next review (Boyle, 2001; Boyle, 2010; Quintus, Borr, Duffield,
Napoleon & Welch, 2012). However, despite note taking is common among the
students, their notes are usually less effective since teachers or lecturers rarely teach

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any proper technique to the students (Kiewra, 2002 as cited in Broe, 2013; Friedman,
2014). Such is also the case for the majority of Indonesian students, as revealed by
Hayati (2013) in her survey. She found that most students of the Faculty of Psychology
in the University of North Sumatera had little knowledge on effective note taking
techniques, making them unable to use their notes for later study. Further, those
students then borrowed their friends’ notes assuming that the notes contained better
information, only to realize that they could not even understand the content of the
notes. A similar issue also occurred among the secondary school students in
Samarinda who had a trouble understanding their own math notes due to poor note
taking skills (Nurdaliana, Dimpudus, & Sumarno, 2011, as cited in Dewi & Indrawati,
2014). Motivated by these findings, the researchers engaged in this study intending
to develop the students’ note taking ability by introducing them to Cornell note taking
format.

Literature Review
A note is basically a product of writing containing condensed words or abbreviations,
used for recording or preserving information from any sources (Piolat, Olive & Kellogg,
2005). Taking a note is considered “the most common method used by students to
learn information from content lectures” (Boyle, 2011, as cited in Broe, 2013, p. 2).
Because people only capable to remember information in such situations in a short
term (Zorn, 2007), the note helps retain information in long-term memory (Piolat,
Olive & Kellogg, 2005). However, studies have shown mixed findings concerning the
impact of note taking for the students on learning (Hayati & Jalilifar, 2009). Some
found that note taking had no significant influence on learning (Dunkel, Shitala &
Berliner, 1989; Broe, 2013), even reduced the learning outcomes because the
students took verbatim notes (Trevors, Duffy & Azevedo, 2014), while others claimed
that it improved student achievements or skills (Zorn, 2007; Kiliçkaya & Çokal-
Karadaş, 2009; Davoudi, Moattarian & Zareian, 2015). The difference in these results
is very likely due to whether or not the students reviewed their notes afterwards.
Dunkel, Shitala & Berliner (1989) remark that taking notes with no intention to re-
read them will have no efficacy on learning. Likewise, Kobayashi (2006) also found
that note taking and note reviewing positively affected the learning outcomes.

The popularity of note taking in the classroom leads people to inadvertently believe
that note taking needs not be taught formally (Boch & Piolat, 2005), and so the
students are left to choose which note taking strategies are suitable for them (Broe,
2013, Bui & Myerson, 2014). Note taking, however, is considered a challenging task
as it requires the students to listen to lectures, understand the content, while at the
same time jotting down important information (Piolat, Olive & Kellogg, 2005; Boyle,
2010; Bui & Myerson, 2014). The difficulty in note taking is also influenced by the
pace of lecturers’ speech (Boch & Piolat, 2005), indicating that the students find it
difficult to keep track on the lecture if the lecturer speaks too fast and utters
incomprehensible words (de Brito, 2015).

All of these issues eventually lead the students to embrace various note taking
strategies depending on their cognitive levels; and thus, the quality of notes taken
will vary (Bui & Myerson, 2014). To help the students avoid poor note quality and
enjoy the benefits of effective notes, many agree that note taking strategies should
be instructed so that the students are exposed to good strategies (Boyle, 2007;
Quintus et. al., 2012; Broe, 2013; Bui & Myerson, 2014; Chang & Ku, 2015; Ipek,
2018). There are several strategies that are beneficial in note taking including outline
notes, matrix notes (Kiewra, Benton, Kim, Risch & Christensen, 1995), Cornell notes
(Broe, 2013; Davoudi, Moattarian & Zareian, 2015; Swenson, 2018), foldables, four
squares & a diamond, guided notes, and mind-mapping (Swenson, 2018) among
others.

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Proceedings of The 8th Annual International Conference (AIC) on Social Sciences, Syiah Kuala University 2018
September 12-14, 2018, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

In this study, the Cornell format was selected as the strategy to teach the students
on how to take notes from books as it has been recommended by some university
centers (Friedman, 2014) and it allows for an organized and systematic structure for
documenting and studying information (Zorn, 2007; Hayati & Jalilifar, 2009; Davoudi,
Moattarian & Zareian, 2015). Cornell note taking style is a format developed by Walter
Pauk at Cornell University involving several steps: Record, Reduce, Recite, Reflect,
Revise, and Recapitulate (Zorn, 2007). The Cornell format is divided into four
columns: heading (top column), for writing lecture or book titles and other
bibliographical details; note taking (right column), for writing down information from
lectures/textbooks; cue (left column), for key ideas based on information in note
taking column; and, summary (bottom column), for an overview of all information
(Broe, 2013; Swenson, 2018). A sample of Cornell notes is shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1. Example of Cornell Notes of AVID’s Application (Brown, 2015)

Research Method
This study employed two-cycle classroom action research design. The action research
design was used considering that the study hoped to implement a technique of note
taking in the writing class of our university. Therefore, the study would only be a case
study without making any generalization for any other samples. Here, selected
participants were those who had taken or was taking the writing course at the time of
the study, consisting of 15 students of English Education Department of Islamic
Studies Faculty of the University of Muhammadiyah Aceh. The demographic data of
the participants showed there were 73% females and 27% males, from 2013, 2015,
and 2017 intake years. Materials for the study comprised: a handout, containing
information on note taking, Cornell format, and note examples; and, a workbook,
containing some excerpts from several books.

The study was carried out in a workshop with a two-cycle period over the course of 6
weeks from February 15 to March 19, 2018. The first cycle was run in three days with
a three-hour meeting each, whereas the second cycle was done after a four-week
interval in another three days as in the first one.

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In the beginning of the first cycle, the study used a PowerPoint presentation to
introduce and explain the Cornell note taking system to the participants, as well as
some samples of Cornell notes. Following the presentation, the researchers provided
some instructions on how to take notes on the whiteboard so that the participants
understood better. The materials were also provided to the participants to ensure they
had a copy of the presentation slides and the texts needed for note taking practice.
Afterwards, the study required the participants to get familiarize with the Cornell
format and practice first by working on their notes in their workbooks, prior to having
their final notes examined in each cycle. There were a total of four texts to take notes
in cycle I, with the notes of the last text being the ones analyzed.

The procedure was repeated in the second cycle, except that the researchers began
the workshop by showing the participants the step-by-step note taking in a general
way and highlighting the use of short phrases and abbreviations in Cornell notes. The
texts used in cycle II were different from those in cycle I because it was necessary to
analyze the progress made by the participants after almost one month break.

This study collected data from the students’ notes in each cycle, using a quantitative
approach. The notes’ quality was scored based on a rubric adapted from AVID
(Nickerson, 2011), from which the comparative data of the students’ notes from the
two cycles could be analyzed. The rubric had four levels of category, ranging from 0
(poor), 1 (fair), 2 (good), to 3 (excellent), in five different aspects of notes. Here, the
study only examined the descriptive statistics of the data collected.

Results and Discussion

During the first cycle, the participants looked confused on how to take notes using the
Cornell format. It was observed that they were still unfamiliar with the technique as
they struggled to record key ideas on their workbooks. Their reactions were expected
since the writing course they took never introduced any note taking formats in the
classroom. Their unfamiliarity and lack of note taking skills were reflected in their
notes collected by the researchers, as shown in table 1 below.

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Note Taking Scores

n Min Max M SD
Cycle I 15 0 2 1.20 .561
Cycle II 15 1 3 2.13 .743

The mean of the participants’ notes in cycle I showed that the quality was “fair”,
suggesting that the notes contained main points of information from the excerpt, but
still had limitations in all five aspects. Most participants partially understood how to
correctly put bibliographic details, note down main ideas, use abbreviating techniques
and paraphrasing, highlight key terms, make questions, and summarize; therefore,
their notes could not be said to be effective enough since they were close to verbatim
(word-by-word) notes. Boyle (2007) argues that in taking good notes, note takers
should record brief points in a readable structure and avoid putting too detailed (word-
by-word) or too loose (little) information. If the note takers write the information
verbatim, their notes can have an adverse impact on learning (Hughes & Suritsky,
1994, as cited in Boyle, 2007).

In the second cycle, the mean increased to the “good” quality, indicating that the
participants had developed their note taking skills and were aware of what needed
recording and reviewing. Some notes even displayed an “excellent” quality, meaning
that the participants were efficient note takers. The improved ability of the
participants’ note taking implies that training people a proper note taking technique
is helpful because they will be able to condense information systematically (Hayati &
Jalilifar, 2009). During observation, the researchers discovered that some participants

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Proceedings of The 8th Annual International Conference (AIC) on Social Sciences, Syiah Kuala University 2018
September 12-14, 2018, Banda Aceh, Indonesia

were still lacking in employing abbreviating procedures and paraphrasing, two of

which could become issues for further studies.

In table 2 below, the distribution of the note quality of the participants is provided.
More than half of the participants reached score 1, and there was none who obtained
score 3 in cycle I. This result is, in fact, quite satisfactory and shows that the
participants could follow the system of the Cornell note taking despite being exposed
to the strategy for the first time. This affirms what Hayati & Jalilifar (2009) has stated
that the Cornell system is useful for new note takers.

The note quality further rose in cycle II, with none of the participants’ notes reached
score 0. As the cycle was undertaken the next four weeks, it is impressive to look at
its result as only 3 notes achieved score 1, while the majority had score 2 and more
than 30% could obtain score 3. The impact of getting used to taking notes with the
format was obvious which is, perhaps, because the Cornell note taking has an easy to
understand format (Zorn, 2007). This finding also conforms the study of Meysarah &
Purwati (2015) who found that the students admitted that using the Cornell system
helped ease their task in listening class.

Table 2. Distribution of Note Taking Scores

Score 0 1 2 3 Total
Frequency 1 10 4 0 15
Cycle I
Percent 6.7 66.7 26.7 0 100
Frequency 0 3 7 5 15
Cycle II
Percent 0 20 46.7 33.3 100

There may be some implications from the findings of this study to teaching and
learning process. The efficacy of note taking has been particularly evident on the
students’ learning achievements if the students can have good notes to be reviewed
later. To yield such effective notes, instruction on note taking strategies is important
in classroom (Hayati & Jalilifar, 2009). Therefore, it is recommended that
teachers/lecturers promote correct note taking skills in the classroom to allow the
students develop the habit in retaining necessary information. Future research may
cover the other note taking strategies and compare the findings with that in this study.

Conclusion
As an essential activity in learning, note taking requires adequate attention in order
for the students generate better notes for reviewing. One strategy of note taking,
known as the Cornell format, can be applied in class so that the students can learn
how to take notes appropriately and effectively. In this study, the researchers found
that the Cornell note taking was quite easy to teach because it has a simple layout
that the students could follow. Our findings revealed that even in cycle I the students
could attain “fair” quality of notes overall despite having never been exposed to any
note taking techniques. The students’ notes further improved to “good” quality in cycle
II in a span of 6 weeks, showing that the Cornell format was indeed very useful, owing
to its systematic and organized structure.

Acknowledgement
This study was successfully conducted under the research grant provided by the
Ministry of Research and Higher Education of Indonesia.

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