Note-taking moderates the relationship between invested mental effort and solving chirality tasks

Abstract

When visual representations of molecules (e.g., skeletal formula) must be decoded to process a task (e.g., determine the absolute configuration of a molecule) and the corresponding schemas are not yet sufficiently automated, paper–pencil format notes may help select relevant information, organize it appropriately, and integrate knowledge without exceeding the working memory capacity (encoding and external storage). This article examines the extent to which task difficulty and invested mental effort differ for digital and paper–pencil-based tasks on the topic of chirality (RQ1) and the extent to which note-taking impacts students’ working memory load when working on paper–pencil-based chirality tasks (RQ2). The dataset is based on the responses of 80 students from Germany who completed 19 chirality task tandems (each consisting of one digital and one paper–pencil-based task) and rated their invested mental effort for each task. Item response theory analyses, group comparisons, and moderation analyses were conducted. Paper–pencil-based chirality tasks were found to be significantly easier than digital chirality tasks, and students invested significantly less mental effort in completing the paper–pencil-based chirality tasks (RQ1). Students who took notes in the paper–pencil format were found to be more capable of solving chirality tasks in both formats. Both groups invested a comparable amount of mental effort. A moderation analysis revealed that when note-taking was low, the relationship between invested mental effort and the probability of solving the task was strongest. For the note-takers, the relationship between the invested mental effort and the probability of solving the task decreased as the number of notes increased (RQ2). The results indicate that notes as external storage are relevant for processing tasks requiring handling representation. As the digital format does not offer comparable options for taking notes, notes represent a subject-specific format difference.