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Academic Listening and Note-Taking: A Multiple-Case Study of First-Year International Undergraduate Students’ Experiences in Different Instructional Contexts at an American University

Tsai, Shiao-Chen
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1341-7433
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1498740906480853

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
Lecture note-taking skills have been studied in the context of academic listening for a long time; however, these studies have not clarified the relationship between the learners’ listening comprehension and their note-taking skills in different lecture contexts. Nowadays, many lectures are filled with various multimedia that support teaching and engage students in large class settings. What is not known is whether and how the nature of the input from these varying multimodal instructional sources may impact, positively or negatively, on second language (L2) students’ listening and note-taking experiences and efficacy. Students now have to distribute their attentional resources skillfully to account for the new combinations of visual and aural input from lecturers, and this situation could pose listening and note-taking challenges for first-year international students, who are learning how to learn in a new educational context while still developing their L2 proficiency in the language of instruction. Given these circumstances, the objectives of this dissertation were: (1) to present multiple portraits of international students’ development of lecture listening and note-taking skills, (2) to examine how different course settings affected their listening and note-taking approaches, (3) to identify the similarities and differences in their listening and note-taking methods, and (4) to provide insights into the realm of academic listening by scrutinizing the interplay between various factors that can shape students’ listening and note-taking experiences. In this multiple-case study, I observed six Chinese-speaking international students in their first semester studying at a Midwestern university in the United States. To record their development of listening and note-taking skills as well as the difficulties they encountered, I collected various types of data, including classroom observations, recall protocols, students’ notes, individual interviews, and online checklists. I inductively analyzed the data by focusing on: (1) experiences in multimedia lecture contexts, (2) primary considerations for taking notes, (3) the reasons for using L1 words in note-taking, and (4) the relationship between one’s listening strategies and note-taking performances. Baddeley’s (2000) Working Memory model was applied as a conceptual framework to interpret the findings, as the students took in both verbal and visual input from lectures and then recalled their prior knowledge stored in long-term memory to make connections between the new information and the old information before they decided what information should be noted for later review. The findings revealed that attention control was the key to one’s listening comprehension and note-taking in lecture contexts, and to retrieve relevant information from long-term memory to connect the new information with previous learning. The most salient contextual factors for the students’ attention control were visual aids, exam formats, lecture pace and classroom activities, while the most direct learner factors were their content previewing habits, prior knowledge, and their learning motivation. Those findings have enriched Baddeley’s (2000) model by explaining the mechanism of attention control and its influences on learner’s note-taking strategies in different lecture scenarios.
Alan Hirvela (Advisor)
Leslie Moore (Committee Member)
Keiko Samimy (Committee Member)
344 p.
Education
academic listening, note-taking, case study, multiple-case study, multimedia, lecture listening, working memory, international students, Chinese students, higher education, study strategies, qualitative data, checklist data

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tsai, S.-C. (2017). Academic Listening and Note-Taking: A Multiple-Case Study of First-Year International Undergraduate Students’ Experiences in Different Instructional Contexts at an American University [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1498740906480853

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tsai, Shiao-Chen. Academic Listening and Note-Taking: A Multiple-Case Study of First-Year International Undergraduate Students’ Experiences in Different Instructional Contexts at an American University. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1498740906480853.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tsai, Shiao-Chen. "Academic Listening and Note-Taking: A Multiple-Case Study of First-Year International Undergraduate Students’ Experiences in Different Instructional Contexts at an American University." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1498740906480853

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1498740906480853
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.