The ability to discern relevant from irrelevant information on PowerPoint slides: A key ingredient to the efficacy of performance feedback

Note taking in the college environment is a key strategy for encoding information during oral-visual lectures that involve the use of PowerPoint technology. Note-taking efficacy depends on many things, one of which being students' abilities to discern what is and is not relevant. In this exploratory study we examined how relevant word discernment ability interacted with the provision of specific performance feedback when students attempted to identify relevant information presented on PowerPoint slides. We analyzed data from a prior study by first categorizing individuals randomly assigned to a specific feedback group (N = 30) into three ability levels (low, medium, and high) based on their initial relevant word identification performance. Factorial ANOVAs explored how initial ability impacted these students' responses to the feedback and abilities to correctly identify relevant information on PowerPoint slides. Results indicated that initial relevant word discernment ability had a significant impact on the efficacy of the specific performance feedback. Low ability individuals showed significant gains after receiving feedback while medium and high ability individuals did not. High ability individuals showed a decline after receiving feedback. Despite significant gains during the feedback phase of the study, the low ability individuals showed poor transfer in the test phase. These results indicate that initial relevant word discernment ability may be an important factor to consider if students are to demonstrate positive gains from note-taking training in the college environment.