The journey from recall to knowledge: A study of two factors – structured doodling and note-taking on a student’s recall ability

Abstract

Purpose

The millennial students are disengaged in the current classrooms. Hence, there is a definite need to evaluate and compare the current learning tools. The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of three learning tools – listening, structured doodling and note-taking – on recall ability of students in the classroom. The authors have specifically compared the effect of Andrade’s (2010) and Boggs et al.’s (2017) structured doodling condition (i.e. shading in shapes) vis-à-vis note-taking and listening.

Design/methodology/approach

An experimental research design was used for the study where three groups of around 40 participants each were created. The participants were Indian students (72 males and 48 females) who were undergraduates at NMIMS University, Navi Mumbai. Each group experienced all the three learning methods that are listening, note-taking and structured doodling. It was a 3×3 mixed model design. Listening, note-taking and structured doodling were compared on recall ability. This was assessed using a questionnaire extracted from Boggs et al.’s (2017) study and a self-designed evaluation sheet.

Findings

Across all three groups, structured doodling and note-taking had a higher impact on recall ability than the traditional method. However, the difference in the impact of note-taking and doodling on recall ability was not practically very large. The current finding assumes higher significance in the Indian education set up as Indian students are accustomed to note-taking as a learning tool yet structured doodling had a statistically analogous effect on recall ability compared to a systematically documented note-taking. Hence, a future direction could be to assess the impact of a blended learning tool that utilizes both note-taking and doodling or note-taking through doodling.

Research limitations/implications

First, the authors did not capture doodling habits of the students. Second, the study limits itself to a small sample size of 120 management graduates. The study can be extended to other disciplines like science and technology and also on how the higher engagement learning tools can be utilized in the normal environs of a course in a classroom. A future direction of the study can be to engage students in an activity as long as a regular lecture of about 60 min. A fusion of learning tools that effectively combines note-taking and doodling can be suggested to enhance recall ability and classroom engagement.

Practical implications

Higher order learning tools characteristically require technologically advanced infrastructure setups. In developing economies like India, most educational institutes may not have access to technologically advanced classrooms; hence, the implementation of higher engagement learning tools becomes a huge challenge. The endeavor in this study has been to study the impact and effectiveness of learning tools like doodling and note-taking which do not inherently call for access to advanced technology.

Social implications

In today’s age of globalization, emerging economies like India are seen to be taking center stage. Thus, ensuring that Indian education system is geared up to train students to compete globally and in the same vein, these students have access to higher engagement learning tools – the absolute need of the hour. Hence, the current research aims to bridge the gap between global education innovations and Indian classroom teaching method implementation.

Originality/value

The research has assessed the effectiveness of three different learning tools, namely – listening, note-taking and structured doodling – in Indian higher education setup. The current research is in harmony with the current literature and would function as an adaptation and augmentation of Andrade’s (2010) and Boggs et al. (2017) studies. A very scanty research body on understanding the impact of learning tools on recall ability exists in the Indian education setup. Current research will act as a bridge between global path breaking education research and implementation of in-class teaching methods in Indian higher education.

Citation

Nayar, B. and Koul, S. (2020), "The journey from recall to knowledge: A study of two factors – structured doodling and note-taking on a student’s recall ability", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-01-2019-0002