Back to basics: How reading the text and taking notes improves learning

Abstract

Instructors regularly assign textbook readings and encourage students to take notes on those readings. Despite this being standard preparation for many courses, there has been little scholarship on how much this pre-lecture preparation helps students learn. Using a panel data set that leverages student fixed effects, the impact that reading the text and taking notes has on quizzes and exams in an Introduction to Microeconomics course is quantified. I find that taking a page of pre-lecture notes and reading the text increases quiz grades by up to a standard deviation. With regard to exams, when students take notes on the textbook their scores also increase, in some cases by a full letter grade. These results show even a small amount of preparation can have a significant impact on student achievement.