The Ability to Discern Relevant from Irrelevant Information on PowerPoint Slides: A Key Ingredient to the Efficacy of Performance Feedback

One of the most common ways college students begin the process of encoding information from oral-visual lectures is by note taking (Bonner & Holliday, 2006; Palmatier & Bennett, 1974). In fact, the majority of students believe that note taking is integral to their academic success (Dunkel & Davy, 1989). Williams et al. (2013) examined this belief as part of a larger study on the timing of note taking. They discovered that, on average, students significantly agreed that note taking is important to their academic success. In addition, students significantly agreed that their note taking skills are very strong. Note taking is a behavior that most, if not all, students engaged in through the school years leading up to the higher education environment. Thus, it is not surprising that with so many years of practice, students gained the belief that they are strong note takers. However, note-taking skill is an interesting phenomenon in that most students never receive direct training on how to effectively take notes (van Meter, Yokoi, & Pressley, 1994). In fact, at the collegiate level, students may be required to take a course entitled something akin to "First Year Seminar" to enhance certain academic skills, and note taking is a common topic of instruction (Harrington, 2013; Murphy, 1989; Schnell & Doetkott, 2003). This requirement inherently assumes that all students entering college are not strong note takers and need to either fully learn how to take notes or at least brush-up on extant note-taking skills. In this brief report we explored how students' initial abilities to identify relevant information on PowerPoint slides interacted with note-taking instruction that included the provision of feedback on relevant word identification performance. Most note taking in the higher education environment occurs in the context of an oral-visual lecture, often with PowerPoint slides (Buchko, Buchko, & Meyer, 2012). PowerPoint is not only heralded as a beneficial technological tool by many researchers in the sense that it keeps students engaged and helps to promote note taking and information processing, but students tend to prefer lectures with PowerPoint as well (Clark, 2008; Frey & Birnbaum, 2002; Susskind, 2005). Despite such support, conclusions as to whether PowerPoint is truly beneficial to the initial processing and comprehension of information are ambiguous (Lowry, 1999; Mantei, 2000; Susskind, 2005). Prior research indicates that PowerPoint alone may not drive effects; rather, interactions with other factors may lead to both positive and negative outcomes. For instance, varied outcomes are likely due to such things as extensive variations in lecturers' abilities to effectively use PowerPoint technology, use of active learning activities in conjunction with PowerPoint, student attitudes toward topics and instructors, as well as variations in students' abilities to take advantage of the technology, regardless of whether or not lecturers use it well (Apperson, Laws, & Scepansky, 2006; Butler & Mautz, 1996; Clark, 2008; Gier & Kreiner, 2009; Nouri & Shahid, 2005). On the student side alone, effective note taking is a complex behavior. Students need to initially scan information presented on the PowerPoint slide, decide what is relevant, and get that information into their notes for later review, all while the oral portion of the lecture is concurrently delivered. Many student characteristics predict effective note taking and later comprehension, such as information processing and hand-writing speed (Peverly et al., 2007). However, other studies indicated that the initial ability to discern relevant from irrelevant information is a key ability that could impact effectiveness of note taking from text in general, and PowerPoint slides specifically, and subsequent retention performance (Brown & Smiley, 1977; Haynes, McCarley, & Williams, 2015; Johnson, 1970; Leutner, Leopold, & den Elzen-Rump, 2007; Williams et al. …