The mind, not the pen: Deep notetaking instruction enhances lecture understanding by mitigating overestimation bias

Notetaking is a prevalent learning activity across various educational levels, yet spontaneous notetaking does not necessarily benefit students from learning. The effect of notetaking varies depending on how it is used. Deep notetaking, which activates the cognitive, metacognitive, and resource management functions of notetaking, has been associated with learning outcomes, but empirical evidence for its impact on lecture understanding remains limited. This experimental study aimed to examine the impact of instructing deep notetaking and utilizing textbook as notetaking medium on understanding in mathematics classes and to explore their influencing mechanisms. 94 high school students were randomly assigned to one of four groups in a 2 × 2 factorial design, examining deep notetaking instruction (with vs. without) and notetaking medium (textbooks vs. notebook). A two-way ANOVA demonstrated a significant main effect of deep notetaking instruction on knowledge post-tests in mathematics ( η p 2 = .07), while no significant effects were found for utilizing textbook for notetaking or interaction effects. Further exploratory analyses indicated that the positive impact of deep notetaking instruction on understanding is mediated not by note quality, but rather by mitigating the tendency for overestimation. These findings indicate that deep notetaking supports students in mitigating overestimation, which consequently fosters a deeper understanding of the learning material. The implications of the results for educational practice and the insights for future research were discussed. • Deep notetaking instruction enhances understanding in mathematics classes. • Monitoring bias mediates the effectiveness of deep notetaking instruction. • The effect of deep notetaking instruction is not mediated by note quality. • Taking notes directly in textbooks does not alleviate cognitive load in class.