The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of writing after reading on college nursing students' factual knowledge and synthesis of knowledge about selected legal issues in nursing. Additionally, the present study sought to determine: if an interaction occurred between time of test and type of writing on factual knowledge: if there were differences between texts: and, if an interaction occurred between text and type of writing on factual knowledge and synthesis of knowledge.

College nursing students (N = 118) were randomly assigned to: a control group which read, reviewed and did no writing; a notetaking group; or, an essay writing group. Students worked with two texts with text order counterbalanced across students. Ten-item multiple-choice tests of factual knowledge were administered to all subjects immediately after completing each reading and writing task and again seven days later. Also, at the delayed time, each student wrote a synthesis-of-knowledge essay for each of the two texts. Each subject had a total of six scores. For each text there was an immediate and a delayed factual knowledge score and a synthesis-of-knowledge score.

The study used a three-group repeated measures analysis of variance design. There were two models. In one, the between-subjects variable was type of writing (no writing, notetaking, and essay writing); the within-subjects variables were time (immediate and delayed) and text (1 and 2); and the dependent variable was factual knowledge. In the second model, the between-subjects variable was the same; text (1 and 2) was a within-subjects variable; and the dependent variable was synthesis of knowledge.

Results showed that notetaking after reading was better than essay writing or no writing for factual knowledge. There was no difference between essay writing and no writing for factual knowledge. On the other hand, essay writing helped students synthesize better than notetaking. However, there was no difference between essay writing and no writing on the synthesis-of-knowledge measure. Also, there was no difference in notetaking and no writing on synthesis of knowledge.