University of Cincinnati
Educators are always looking for ways to help students process and retain information. Visual notetaking, also known as Sketchnotes, are a creative and low-cost learning tool that can easily be integrated into science curriculum. Sketchnotes, however, remain underutilized in the classroom. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the effects of Sketchnotes on learning retention by first presenting information in the Sketchnotes style and then allowing students the opportunity to create their own visual notes in a Clinical Immunology course. The data gathered from this study indicates that students benefited from the use of visual notes either perceived or from test scores. Quantitatively, the student cohort exposed to Sketchnotes performed better on 30 out of the 45 selected test questions directly related to the Sketchnotes students created compared to the student cohort that were not exposed to Sketchnotes. Furthermore, calculating the percent difference between each question revealed that out of the 30 questions that Sketchnote cohort performed better on, 20 questions had a 10% difference or less, and 10 questions had a difference of 12% to 40% between the cohorts. This finding suggests the students that utilized Sketchnotes had a significantly higher percentage of correct answers compared to the Control cohort. Qualitative survey results revealed that most students experienced a perceived learning benefit after creating and using Sketchnotes as study guides. Sketchnotes are a skill that takes time and practice to develop and should be encouraged as an alternative option to process and retain science-related learning material.
