Individual Differences and Intervention Flaws

In this study, qualitative themes and quantitative findings from previous research were used to justify the exploration of four experimental, note-taking conditions and the impact of those conditions on student learning from Web-based text. However, puzzling results obtained from dependent measures of student learning were quite inconsistent with the previous research. With no adequate theoretical explanation for these results, a follow-up explanations phase of qualitative investigation was conducted. Analyses of interview data indicated that certain experimental conditions imposed upon students an unexpected distraction. Furthermore, quantitizing students' note-taking documents showed that many students in this study used a more effective note-taking strategy than did students in a similar condition in previous research.