Journal of Special Education Technology JSET 2009 Volume 24, Number 3 45 Exploring the Effects of Digital Note Taking on Student Comprehension of Science Texts Mark A. Horney, Lynne Anderson-Inman, Fatima Terrazas-Arellanes University of Oregon William Schulte, Jon Mundorf, Sheri Wiseman Collier County Schools, Collier County, Florida Keith Smolkowski Oregon Research Institute Jen Katz-Buonincontro, Mindy L. Frisbee University of Oregon Tis study investigated the efects of text notes and voice notes on the comprehension of science texts by ffth grade students. Te study was conducted to determine whether digital note taking was an efective reading strategy, and whether one form of digital note taking was more efective than the other. Results revealed that general education students made statistically signifcant gains for both science texts: Cells, and Heredity. For Cells, the voice notes group outperformed their text note peers at a level that was statistically signifcant. Special education students also made greater test gains using voice notes rather than text notes, and this diference was statistically signifcant for short-answer tests on Heredity. Additional analyses revealed diverse note taking strategies, which appeared consistent across media. T his study explored the impact of digital note taking on the reading comprehension of ffth grade students with and without disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Specifcally, the study investigated student comprehension of supplementary science texts presented in an electronic reading environment that al- lowed them to embed digital notes, either as typed text (text notes) or recorded voice (voice notes). Students were asked to summarize each paragraph of the text us- ing one of these two media. Both forms of digital note taking were expected to support text comprehension by promoting student interaction with the text through the production of paragraph-level summaries or paraphrases. Te study also was designed to investigate whether one form of digital note taking was more efective for stu- dents than the other, with special attention given to stu- dents with disabilities who often struggle with producing text-based notes. Teoretical Framework and Related Research Tis study is situated within the conceptual framework of supported electronic text (eText), frst described more than a decade ago (Anderson-Inman & Horney, 1998; Horney & Anderson-Inman, 1999). Supported eText is digital text supported by one or more resources that read- ers can call upon to enhance their understanding of the content. Tese resources have been categorized into 11 types, based on the support provided to the reader and the role the resource plays in the reading process (Ander-