Effects of Direct Instruction on Note-Taking Skills of Students at a Performing Arts Middle School

The purpose of this quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group research study was to provide evidence of the effectiveness of direct instruction of note-taking skills for 84 eighth grade math students enrolled at a performing arts middle school in Wilmington, Delaware. An experimental group received eleven consecutive class periods of direct instruction of note-taking skills using the fifth unit of Mangrum-Strichart's (2005) Study Skills and Strategies for Students in Upper Elementary and Middle School while a control group did not receive instruction. All students were evaluated using the School Motivation and Learning Strategies Inventory--Teen (SMALSI--T). The SMALSI--T assessed ten study strategy and student motivation constructs. The construct of interest in this study concerned Note-Taking/Listening Skills (NOTE). Pre-test and post-test group means were generated and compared in order to determine the effectiveness of the direct instruction. Results from the t-test for independent samples indicated that the students in the control group and experimental group had similar note-taking skill ability at the beginning of the study. A t-test for independent samples on post-test group means resulted in no significant difference between the control and experimental groups; however, the experimental group had a lower group mean on the pre-test than the control group, but a higher group mean on the post-test. The t-test for dependent samples resulted in a significant difference between the pre-test group mean and the post-test group mean for the experimental group while the control group's pre-test and post-test means were not significantly different. It was concluded that direct instruction of note-taking skills resulted in improved use of note-taking skills by eighth grade students at a performing arts middle school in Wilmington, Delaware.