A Sample Investigation on Note-taking Practices of English Language Teaching Students İngiliz Dili Eğitimi Öğrencilerinin Not Tutma Uygulamalarına İlişkin Örnek Bir Araştırma

Students’ success or failure in courses is variably affected by the development of their listening and note-taking practices. These areas of development have such kind of cognitive contributions on students. Given the central role of the lecture in faculty education, these cognitive abilities deserve to be examined in terms of university students who expected to perform cognitive abilities at the highest degree. Thus, this research aims to seek how English Language Teaching Department Students at Amasya University carry out their note-taking practices in their courses. The sample of the study consists of 1, 2, 3 and 4 grade students studying at English Language Teaching Department during the spring semester of 2017-2018 academic year. In addition to the demographic information and questions that explore the students’ general practices about note-taking, 42 item scale ranged in ‘‘1= Never’’, ‘‘2= Seldom’’, ‘‘3= Sometimes’’, ‘‘4= Usually’’, ‘‘5= Always’’ was applied to the students as data collection instruments. In data analysis process, percentages and frequencies representing the ELT students generally and individually were calculated for descriptive analysis. Moreover, related to the number of the participants parametric methods were also used to reach statistical proofs to support the descriptive results of the study. The findings of the study point out such effective ideas that efforts and practices of cognitive abilities such as note-taking should be improved in educational lives of individuals not only at their bachelor degree but also at all stages of their educational lives.


Introduction
Note-taking has been anticipated as a kind of procedure in retaining the contents of the courses by many executives. This belief is supported by many researchers who are in favor of the idea that note-taking is useful for the retention of the lecture content (Crawford (as cited in Dunkel, 1989, p. 261), Rickards, Fajen, Sullivan, and Gillespie (1997, p. 508) and Carrell, Dunkel and Mollaun (2002). Note-taking is one of the generative skills that provide practical framework for better retention and learning (Mayer, 1998). Moreover, qualified with this kind of ability depends on the selective ideas of the executives who are defined as the learners or students studying at schools and desire to attend the knowledge they need to obtain selectively. This selective operation requires also the ability of defining the critical thought of a lecture, arrange subjective connections between the thoughts and ideas, and organize appropriate peripheral links between what is drawn from the existing situations and the previous experiences the learners have.
Note-taking includes mental operations that underline the development of the cognitive abilities of text copying, incidental learning, intentional learning, reading sentences, reading a text, note-taking from a lecture, composing a text, translating, revising, and planning (Britton et al., 1982;Kellogg, 1986;and Piolat et al., 1996;Olive & Piolat, 2002;). A set of anticipating and control of mental operations such as executive functions that are required in the process of note-taking even though the process itself implies the automatized activation process associated with comprehension such as accessing mental lexicon and writing abilities of letter formation. All these steps should occur in rapid sequence in coordination with multiple cognitive processes that involve the central executive component of working memory (Baddeley, 1996(Baddeley, , 2000. Baddeley (2000), claimed that working memory which deals with comprehension (Daneman & Merikle, 1996), and writing (Kellogg, 1996;Levy & Ransdell, 2002;Olive, 2004) has a crucial role in all cognitive activities demanding temporary storage and manipulation of information regardless of the accomplishment of the target activities to be learned or skilled enough. Since these two activities are natural outcome and easily observable cognitive efforts, note-taking as an embracing term for such kinds of processes is associated as a part of cognitive abilities the individuals perform consciously.
In this sense, as seen above, taking notes while listening to a lecture can be widely accepted as a useful strategy for the retention of lecture contents in academic life. However, previous research with native speakers has presented mixed results regarding the facilitative effect of note-taking, the rationale for this study is straightforward that there is a significant need for empirical or descriptive research that can re-examine the nature of note-taking practices with the context of non-native speakers of English who are candidates of teaching English in the future. Thus, this study aims to exemplify and focus on identifying one of the different conceptions of lecture learning such as note-taking practices of English Language Teaching (ELT) students at bachelor degree. The study also displays an example of the comparative analysis between the same and different levels of ELT students regarding their own note-taking practices. By this way, this research will provide teachers with a better and comprehensive framework of the process about how to convey their course content and provide them a snapshot summary about the practical and eclectic ways of what to regard during these processes by aiming to seek the answers of the following research questions: • What are the note-taking practices of ELT students in Amasya University? • Are there significant differences between the ELT students' note-taking practices in terms of their grades? • Are there significant differences between the ELT students' note-taking practices in terms of their gender? • Are there significant differences between the sub-categories of note-taking practices of ELT students? • What are the views of participants about their note-taking practices?

Review of Literature
On account of the importance of note-taking on the basic and fundamental abilities of the learners in receiving and absorbing the contents of courses such as reinforcing metacognitive thinking, the note-taking practices and the issues related to it deserved to be investigated. Although there have been outstanding research dealing with note-taking, the number of the research applied in this category is undeniably restricted. In Turkey, the review done by the key word of ''note-taking'' in the database of the Council of Higher Education results in limited number of the thesis studies which are held mostly in master degree and very few of them applied in doctor of philosophy level. Oğuz (1999) stated that note-taking may develop the degree of learning and because of this the learners needed to have or be informed about the effective note-taking strategies in order to increase the amount of the knowledge they are expected to obtain. Kiriş (2005) in a similar study examined the effects of note-taking techniques on the students' performance and the level of recalling, in history teaching and asserted that there was a significant difference between the learners who use note-taking technique and the learners who do not use that technique as a recalling strategy of the history course content. Çetingöz (2006) provided a comprehensive study related to the note-taking strategy combining it with the retention and motivation effects implying that these strategies had impact on motivation and hence on achievement regardless of the gender variable. Bozkurt (2009) in a postgraduate thesis, searched for the effect of language of note-taking on successful task completion and explained that the learners preference and perceptions of note-taking procedure might affect the way how they manipulate with the knowledge they listen to and acquire by the participation of 38 intermediate level English Preparatory Class students. Kocaadam (2011) applied a research in order to find out whether the listening education with note-taking practices has effect on the sample of 102 7 th grade Turkish students and reflected that through the listening practices the note-taking skills of the learners could be improved significantly in Turkish Lesson. Relevantly, Balaban (2017) studied on a comparison of shadowing and note-taking as two while-listening strategies and their effects on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners which highlighted the importance of listening skills as a precondition for effective note-taking skills and claimed that shadowing and note-taking abilities may have direct and observable effect on the comprehension of the listening skills of the learners. For the last but not the least, Uzun (2018) in a comprehensive research worked on the effects of the selective listening strategies on note-taking and summarizing skills of 27 bilingual 5 th grade students. In that research, it was determined that selective listening enables both the teachers and learners at the same extent to manage the time carefully, cope with the text in a way how they desire and need to use it especially in the classrooms where the number of the students is higher than expected . As mentioned above, the note-taking research dealing with not only the general educational aspects conducted in Turkey but also for English as a foreign language learners or/and the professionals who are expected to develop these kinds of features of the students specifically has been taking place a small amount of place in the national review of literature.
On the other hand, the studies carried out in different parts of the world dealing with note-taking have fresh and recent findings and conclusions for the researchers. Some of them tried to make connection with cognitive abilities of the learners and note-taking skills of them while the others were in effort to understand the listening comprehension of the learners or how the listening comprehension skills convey the learning process and note-taking skills or strategies that the learners are expected to have. Starting with Meer (2012) note-taking skills of the learners are seen as a challenging skill in the 21 st century both for the students and for the teachers and academicians. Thus, in the changing arena of technology and the format of the lesson or courses the teachers and especially the academicians have to follow could be seen as some of the main factors that affect the ways of the process itself and how the learners perceive the skills of note-taking. Clark at al. (2013) in the technical report of conveyed an experimental research and made the learners listen to a text by dividing them into two groups as the control one would not take any notes during the listening task but the experimental group would take some notes while they listen to the script. Contrary to the expectations, the results of the study failed to show there was no significant difference between those groups in terms of performing well for the listening task. All-Musalli (2015) suggested some ways based on the reading comprehension skills that the learners have to follow in the study of taxonomy of lecture notetaking skill and sub-skills. According to this research, the complexity of lecture note-taking could be overcome by the teachers who are in need of sending the content of the courses in a systematic, accurate and planned way. Another point of view was that although note-taking was seen as an important skill for course achievement, there had been very few note-taking applications dealing with the sessions to be needed to follow or taught to the students. Unfortunately, only 10 of the peer-reviewed articles published between 1990-2014 addressed case-design studies informing the researchers about the process of note-taking or how it took place. Hence, the demand is high for the procedures of how lecture note-taking occures and how the teachers need to educate or inform the student about getting more benefits of that kind of cognitive skill .  conducted a remarkable study related to the note-taking instruction for college students with autism spectrum disorder. In the study, they found out that the controlled instructions such as distinguishing subtopics and details, paraphrasing, and using abbreviations and symbols might increase even the skills of those who had mild cognitive disabilities, which reflects the positive aspects of note-taking procedures for individuals.

Methodology
Methodology involves the details of participants, data collection instrument, data collection procedure, and data analysis of the corresponding study. In this part; furthermore, it is appropriate to confirm that survey model was utilized as a design of the study. Survey research design provides numeric description of attitudes or opinions for the samples of the target populations and provide quantitative aspects for the studies (Creswell, 2014).

Participants
132 English Language Teaching students registered to English Language Education Department of Amasya University voluntarily participated in this study at the end of fall semester in 2017-2018 Academic Year. No selection of the participants was done because of the limited number of participants continuing to the 1st, 2nd, 3th and 4th grade at bachelor degree. In this sense, convenience-sampling method was preferred to reach the highest number of the participants as many as possible. The participants included in the study ranged in age as given below:  Table 1. reflects the age and grade distribution of the participants included in this study. As described, the 34.1, 31.7, and 17.1% of the total 41 1 st grade students' age range mostly between 19, 20, and 21; 36.1, 33.3% of the total 36 2 nd grade students' age range mostly between 21 and 20; 40.5, 35.1% of the total 37 3 rd grade students' age range mostly between 21 and 22; 38.9, 27.8% of the total 4 th grade students' age range mostly between 22 and 21. As a whole, 13.6, 20.5, 30.3 and 19.7% of the students with 18, 27, 40, and 26 frequencies take place in the age range of 19-22 in the current study. The number of the students participated in this study differs in terms of the grades since the number of the students is appointed by the authority of the Council of the Higher Education and the students who passed the university exam are expected to pass the proficiency exam which is compulsory for most of the students, applied to the universities in Turkey.  Table 2. illustrates the distribution of gender and grades of the participants. In the 1st and 2nd graders 31.7, 68.3% with the frequencies of 13 and 28; 33.3, 66.6% with the frequencies of 12 and 24 consist of males and females. In addition to this, for the 3rd and 4th graders 27, 73% with the frequencies of 20 and 20; 22.2, 77.8% with frequencies of 4 and 14 refer to the male and female participants of the study. To sum up, 29.5 and 70.5 percentages with the frequencies of 39 and 93 male and females embody the total sample of the study. The higher number of the female participants could be accepted as normal due to the general inclination of these genders to English Language Teaching Departments of the universities taking place in Turkey.

Data Collection Instrument
At the beginning of the inventory some demographic questions involving information about gender, age and grade are included in the scale. Following them, some questions related to the students' note taking practices such as whether they take notes or not, and in what ways they follow that process, personally what the hardest part of taking notes is, how frequently they have problems in note taking, and how frequently they borrow notes when they miss their classes were asked to the participants. Subsequently, the inventory for note-taking practices, prepared by Ryan (2001) comprising 42 items under seven actions, was applied as data collection instrument. The actions included in the inventory are defined as goal setting (7,8,9,10,11,12 items), action planning (1,2,3,4,5,6 items), specifying actions (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 items), executing actions (13,14, 15, 16, 17, 18 items), monitoring outcomes (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 items), interpreting outcomes (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 items), and evaluating outcomes (37,38,39,40,41,42 items) which based on a psychological model of The Human Action Cycle (Norman, 1988). The model aims to describe the steps undertaken by human beings when they interact with the computer. Relevantly, it describes how individuals set their goals and follow the desired actions to achieve them. In this action taking process, the individuals are expected to pursue several steps of forming a goal, forming and executing actions, evaluating outcomes that could share the same cognitive basis of decision-making process an individual may encounter during their note taking processes as well.

Data Collection and Analysis
The questions aiming to collect data for note-taking practices of the learners were submitted to the participants by providing such kinds of options. In order to collect data whether they take notes or not and in what ways they prefer to take notes, the participants were offered to choose from the options of ''paper'', ''recording'', ''electronic'', ''other ways (Please specify)'', and ''I don't take notes''. In order to collect the participants' personal point of views about the hardest part of taking notes, they were provided with ''Professor's lectures are too fast'', ''I cannot understand or hear the professor'', ''Monotony and boredom exist during the lesson'', ''Other (please specify)'' options. For the purpose of finding how frequently they have problems in note taking practices, and how frequently they borrow notes when they miss their classes, the participants were expected to choose from ''Every Class'', ''Every Other Class'', ''Somewhat frequently'', ''Infrequently'', ''Only once'' and ''Every Class Missed'', ''Every Other Class Missed'', ''Somewhat frequently'', ''Infrequently'', ''Only once'', ''Other (please specify)'' provided options.
The other quantitative part of data providing basis for the current study was collected by the above-mentioned inventory for note-taking practices. The answers for the items are gathered in a 5-point likert-type format ranging from ''1= Never'', ''2= Seldom'', ''3= Sometimes'', ''4= Usually'' and ''5= Always''. The SPSS 20.00 package program for social sciences was used in data coding and analyzing process. Rather than the parametric statistics, non-parametric statistics were applied to the gathered data since the numbers of the participants do not represent the satisfactory level to make statistical calculations in that way as N30. Moreover, the reliability of the whole scale and the sub-sections referring to the actions of note-taking were calculated according to the Cronbach Alpa. The Cronbach Alpha levels of the inventory, shows that the sub-sections of goal setting, action planning, specifying actions, executing actions, monitoring actions and evaluating outcomes satisfy the desired level for the reliability expected from the surveys or questionnaires applied in the social sciences since their Cronbach Alphas were calculated as equal to .70 or higher than that level. Unsurprisingly, interpreting outcomes sub-section fails to meet the reliability level with the calculated .52 Cronbach Alpa level. But in the data analysis process this sub-section wasn't excluded from the whole part, which could be accepted as one of the limitations of the current study.

Results
In accordance with the collected data, the findings and the results illustrated in the tables are presented in the following part of the study.  Table 5. shows the independent samples t-test results for the inventory regarding the gender differences for the whole participants. According to the findings, it is concluded that in spite of the higher number of the female students participated in the study, mean values of 63.17 for male and 67.57 for female participants differ significantly from each other t(130)= 2.02, p˂.05.  Table 6. indicates the findings of one-way ANOVA results for the inventory scores of grades. The finding shows that the mean values of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade students do not differ significantly from each other F(128)= 2.20, p˂.05. The mean value of the 1st grade students represents the highest value for the inventory scores with the value of X =70.01 while the mean values of the 4th grade student are followed by them with the value of X =65.63. On the other hand, the mean values of the 2nd and 3rd grade students have the lowest values for the inventory with the mean values of X =64.08 and 64.58.  Table 8. demonstrates one of the descriptive results of the study referring to the ways of note-taking practices of the students studying at an English Language Teaching Department of a state university in Turkey. According to the findings, paper is still the upmost preference of the learners for the medium of note-taking practices with the frequency of 109 (82%). Following this, not note-taking emerges as a second highly preferred way for the students with the frequency of 12 (9.1%), paper and electronic together is the third preference for the learners with 7 frequency (5.3%) while the electronic is the less preference with the number of 4 (3%). The difficulties of the students' note-taking practices are presented in the abovementioned table. According to the results, the lectures being too fast, the monotony and boredom of the courses, and the learners not able to understand or hear the courses are the hardest parts for them with the frequencies of 49, 40, and 25 (37.1%, 30.3%, and 18.9%). On the other hand, other factors that are not mentioned in the inventory and all of those factors could be the less hard parts of taking notes with the frequency of 9 (6.8%).  Table 10. describes the frequency of students' problems in note-taking practices. According to the findings, most of the students state that they have problems in note-taking practices somewhat frequently with the frequency of 59 (44%) although 41 (31.1%) of them have problems in the same process infrequently. 4 of the participants (3%) have problems once in their note taking practices; however, 18 (13.6%) and 10 (7.6%) of the participants have difficulties in note-taking practices in every class or every other class they take.  Table 11. informs the findings of borrowing notes frequencies of English Language Teaching Department students. In terms of the frequency of borrowing notes, 38 (28.8%) students borrow notes somewhat frequently and 31 (23.5%) of them take note from others or in other ways for every class they missed though 28 (21.2%) of them borrow notes infrequently. 16 (12.1%) students borrow notes only once while 14 (10.6%) of them borrow notes for every other class missed, and 5 (3.1%) of them define themselves as borrowing notes less than only once from the options they are offered. '' These statement were given to them and they were asked for choosing the best options among ''very poor '', ''poor'', ''fair'', ''good'' and ''excellent'' which describes their point of views best. The table shows the overall views of the participants instead of the views in terms of the grades. According to the table, the participants with 43 and 41 frequencies think that the first metaphor is fair and good with 32.6 and 31.1 percentages. The participants with 37 and 33 frequencies express that the second metaphor is fair and good with 28 and 25 percentages. The participants with the frequencies of 58, 39 for the third metaphor represent 43.9 and 29.5 percentages of the total sample. Moreover, the participants with 50 and 34 frequencies think that the fourth metaphor is good and fair with 37.9 and 25.8 percentages. The participants with 48 and 32 frequencies express that the second metaphor is good and fair with 36.4 and 24.2 percentages. The participants with the frequencies of 49 and 44 for the sixth metaphor exhibit 37.1 and 33.3 percentages of the total sample. Surprisingly, the highest number of the participants with 58 frequencies (43.9%) reflects that the participants are able to write down their own shorthand and reproduce their notes in clear and complete as soon as the lecture finishes.

Discussion
In this current study, the findings aim to find out the answers of what the note-taking practices of ELT students in Amasya University are, whether there are significant differences between the ELT students' note-taking practices in terms of their grades and gender. In addition to these, the findings seek to clarify whether there are significant differences between the sub-sections of note-taking practices of ELT students and what the views of participants are about their notetaking practices.
In agreement with the above-mentioned findings, it is found out that the note-taking practices of English Language Teaching Department students differ significantly from each other in terms of the sub-sections referred as actions of the inventory applied to the participants although the mean values of the actions seem close to each other. Regarding the total number of the student studying at one of the state university in Turkey, it could be stated that the actions of goal setting, action planning, specifying actions, executing actions, monitoring outcomes, interpreting outcomes, and evaluating outcomes need to be taken into account since the learners mean values are seen between 63.48 and 68.63, which also means that the students studying in an educational faculty and desire to become teachers demand more support that would help and feed their future career of teaching. As Boch and Piolat (2005) explained in addition to recording information and/or aiding reflection functions of note-taking, the note-taking process have to be seen as an indispensible part of receiving and taking information named as information transmission process.
Despite the fact that grade differentiation does not have significant results, the mean values of grades offer that the 1st and the 4th grade students studying at a state faculty of education have the highest values compared with the other grades of 2nd and 3rd. This result may address the background process of the students, which require them to study hard, and in a planned way before entering to a university; and after their graduation, which is another compulsory process they have to overcome to do their job in the Ministry of Education. It is consisted with what the research by Augilar (2008) suggested in that strategy training process of self-regulation strategies such as notes, graphic organizers, and summaries; and how to transfer them on teaching and learning processes take place such an important role in academic evaluation and the benefits of the instructions.
As reported by the gender variable, the finding of the study meets statistically important significance between male and female participants of the study. Although the number of the female participants is more than the male ones, the mean values reflect that these groups have meaningful differences in terms of their note taking practices. On the contrary to one of the conclusions Al-Askhar (2014) states in that the students' gender does not have any effect on their perspective towards note-taking, the current study describes statistically importance on gender difference and its effect on how the learners perceive and apply some practices related to their academic achievement.
The items of 25 ''After a lecture I fill in missing steps so that it's clear where the instructor started and where he or she ended up.'', 26 ''After a lecture I go over the material in my mind to make certain I have absorbed all of the information before it starts to fade.'', 27 ''After a lecture I check my notes with someone else's to make certain I've gotten everything down.'', 28 ''After a lecture I write my notes out in clear and complete sentences while I can still make sense of them.'', 29 ''After a lecture I compare my notes with those of other students and with the readings to make sure I've got the facts correct.'', and 30 ''After a lecture I go over my notes and focus on the underlying message that the instructor is trying to get across.'' referring to the monitoring outcomes sub-section of the scale indicates the significant difference between the 1st and 2nd grade students in terms of the mean values they have from the inventory. This significant difference highlights the ''action cycle'' addressed by Norman (1988) and leads to execution and evaluation process which are the parts of perceiving and interpretation the system state. As opposed to Çetingöz (2010) who states that students' note-taking performances have positive correlation in relation to their grades, the results of this study reveal that the 1st graders have more tendencies in using their note-taking strategies and skills than the 2nd graders which reflects also negative correlation between these kinds of skills and grade variable of the students considering other unlabelled conditions they have before or during their faculty education.
The findings related to the ways of participants' note-taking practices regarding the medium of notes, the hardest part of note-taking, the frequency of problems in note-taking practices, the frequency of borrowing notes are parallel to Castello and Monereo's (2005) claim in that they observed note-taking process as a hegemonic strategy for learners at the universities and it serves as a main ground for the educational interaction between the teachers and students. Moreover, it is highlighted that cognitive and metacognitive skills required for acquiring a second language and learning a foreign language provide the students with the primary understanding and perception of the different factors and the interaction of them with the cognitive outcome of their actions (Goh, 1997, p. 362). Therefore, as Meltzer, Katzir-Cohen, and Miller (2001) and Beckman (2002) have emphasized, note-taking seen as a compulsory and leading strategy among the learners, should be a part of strategy teaching in educational settings where the students are expected to be aware of how and when to use these kinds of strategic decisions reflecting the characteristics and performance of their independent and autonomous learning.

Conclusion and Suggestions
Note -taking, accepted as an activity helping the learners learn and learn to write for all over the disciplines, should be a part of curriculum not only for the primary, secondary schools but also at the universities since it provides the learners develop and acquire the basic skills of stabilizing the acquired knowledge and replicating the knowledge during the course or lessons. At this point, the learners are expected to have note-taking ability in an effective way so that they are able to handle the problems in terms of making decision whether they have understood the complexity and the meaning of the content they are received.
Despite the fact that note-taking activity has been underestimated over many years by the researchers associating it with such kinds of techniques as using abbreviations for words, changing the symbols which are also the reflections of the external memory, undoubtedly it symbolizes the how the internal and working memory of the learners operate during the knowledge or information transformation process they are exposed to. Therefore, by this way the learners may be equipped with complex and intellectual abilities such as reasoning, decision making or problem solving which may contribute to their metacognitive abilities.
Consequently, in order to support the finding of the current study, note-taking could be taken into consideration with other national or international universities of which students may provide control or experiment groups for the further studies. Furthermore, the correlation between the teaching skills and note-taking skills or the achievement levels of the learners may be regarded in other academic studies. First and foremost, the projects or experimental studies involving note-taking skills aiming to provide the learners how to use the strategies of these skills and encouraging the application of it effectively and voluntarily by showing how these practices feed them for their current and future career could supported and the different samples of other practices the learners are in need of equipped with could be enhanced.