1NOTE-MAKING LITERATURE REVIEW

Within psychological and educational psychological communities, debates over strategies such as the practice of notemaking tend to focus on memory and/or behaviour change (Buzan, 1989: Buzan 1999). In the Learning Development community such exploration traverses contested terrain. Lea and Street (1998) set the scene with their typology of academic practices that moved from ‘study skills ’ to ‘academic literacies’. However, this literature review draws on Bourdieu’s theory of ‘habitus ’ and Burr’s discussion of social constructionism to explore notemaking as a socio-political activity set within the wider discourse of higher education. At a time when education policy is ever changing, with frequently conflicting outcomes, particular attention is paid to New Labour’s policy initiative to Widen Participation, considering the consequences of this policy for non-traditional students, i.e. “students from under-represented groups ” (Medway, Rhodes, Macrae, Maguire & Gerwirtz’s 2003, p.3). There is consideration of five different types of note-making, including linear, Cornell, mind maps, pattern notes and paragraph patterns, in an attempt to understand the usefulness of different note-making strategies to non-traditional students