Taking Notes During the Teaching Process: the Perspective of University Teachers

Abstract

Since the 1970s, numerous foreign studies have explored the topic of note-taking during the educational process and the benefits it brings to student learning. Given that a large number of studies have focused on students, the aim of this paper is to examine the importance that university teachers attribute to students' note-taking compared to copying teacher notes.. This paper is dedicated to an analysis of one specific item related to note-taking that was included in the Questionnaire: Approaches to Teaching Inventory. The sample consisted of 317 teachers from the University of Novi Sad, representing various scientific fields (natural sciences, humanities and social sciences, technical and technological sciences, medical sciences and arts). In addition to the scientific fields to which the teachers belong, the responses were interpreted in relation to the variables such as gender, age, the level of study at which the teachers teach, their teaching experience, and the size of the teaching group for the given subject. The results suggest that teachers give a slight preference to student note-taking compared to providing students with ready-made notes giving a slight preference to student-focused teaching (conceptual change) over teacher-focused instruction (information transmission). Variables related to affiliation with a specific scientific field and the age of the respondents significantly influenced the teachers' responses. However, further research is needed in order to obtain more comprehensive data, and in the contemporary context, it would be particularly important to consider the importance that teachers place on digital note-taking compared to analogue environments, as well as the impact this has on student learning.