Clickers

Clickers as electronic response systems allow students to respond instantly to questions. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of using clickers on student participation during different periods of EFL courses. The intervention was implemented in question– response sessions of an EFL course at a secondary school. A quasi-experimental design was used in which twenty participants were assigned to two groups, Group A (n = 10) and Group B (n = 10). The implementation process is divided into three periods. In the preparation period, both of the groups did not use clickers, in the first period while the Group A used clickers, Group B continued without using clickers in the lessons. Then in the second period; in contrary, Group A and Group B students changed the roles in using the clickers; that is Group B started with clickers in the second period and Group A followed the lesson without clickers. When the clickers used the students' participation rates were determined by clicker system records and an observation form is used when non-clickers strategies were used. As a result, even if they used clickers in different time periods both Groups A and B increased their participation rates while using clickers. Moreover, when the students in Group A were non-clickers, their correct answer rates were decreased. In contrast, when the students in Group B were non-clickers, their correct answer rates were increased. Results showed that even after students ceased to use clickers, positive effects on participation continued; however, the quality of the students' answers declined. Along with the study findings, suggestions for clickers use in various periods of the courses are included.

This report is a review of research into the use of electronic voting systems to support lectures. This review, which was undertaken through funding from the Sub- Committee on Innovations in Learning, Teaching and Assessment, provides an overview of the potential of such systems; it also identifies issues associated with their use.
Based on this review, it has been concluded that:
• Voting systems are best understood as a tool rather than a teaching approach. They do not ‘cause’ good learning – in fact, if poorly prepared or used for their own sake, students were extremely critical of them. However, when lecturers used these tools as part of a wider effort to support active engagement with learning there is evidence that they can support increased motivation and attainment, at least in part as a result of their ability to provide rapid feedback on the learning process.
• Such systems represent an opportunity to improve lecturing. The requirement to emphasise engagement and interaction with students prompts lecturers to reflect on qualities believed to characterise good teaching.
• Such systems build on work already undertaken in college, in areas such as technology and lecturing, confidence assessment and objective testing.
• The introduction of such a system has resource implications. The direct costs of such a system are in the region of £10,000-£60,000 for a lecture theatre for 250 students. In addition, there are indirect costs in terms of lecturers’ time (to learn how to use the system and reflect on how it will change their teaching), support staff time (including Media Resources and Information Services) and for staff time to provide pedagogic support (e.g. involvement in a SCILTA project or a secondment to Education & Professional Development).
• In addition, practical issues such as the installation and mobility of the resource would need to be addressed.

Mobile polling is gradually replacing clicker technology as the student response system (SRS) of choice largely because students prefer to use their own devices to participate in class. Only recently have researchers begun to examine the advantages and disadvantages of mobile polling systems, mostly investigating Poll Everywhere (www.polleverywhere.com). This study introduces a new polling software, Socrative (www.socrative.com), that is comparable to Poll Everywhere but provides instructors with additional features. An exploratory study was conducted to assess students’ perceived benefits, drawbacks, and level of satisfaction from using this software in an upper level marketing course. The study identified four key categories using a thematic analysis of qualitative data: (a) student learning, (b) course delivery and assessment, (c) use of technology, and (d) satisfaction and adoption. Eighteen strengths and four weaknesses are presented. Some of the main strengths are as follows: anonymity, knowledge acquisition, interactivity, immediate feedback, usefulness, and ease of use, and it motivates students to participate. Weaknesses include non-participation, distraction, and software reliability, and it can motivate students to cheat. In addition, students provided suggestions for improvement, while urging other instructors to adopt this technology in their courses. Discussion and implications are provided at the end of the paper.

Many universities use Classroom Response Systems (CRS) to actively involve students during class. In addition to long-established hardware-based CRS, there are more and more web-based solutions being developed, which allow students to participate by using their own smart devices in order to vote. This way the final price of the system does not depend on the number of students, so even courses with more than 1000 participants may implement Peer Instruction, which is a teaching method that utilizes CRS. As a side effect, the functionality of the mobile devices exceeds the Clickers used in hardware-based CRS. The improved input capabilities enable developers to implement new types of questions. A market analysis, which was conducted as part of this thesis, shows that many existing web-based CRS fail to take advantage of this opportunity. Therefore, a web-based CRS was developed as part of this thesis, which is very easily extensible to include new question formats. The system already contains some question types. In the future even more question types may be tested effortlessly, based on this system. This will hopefully improve teaching with CRS in the long term.

Many large lecture classes at undergraduate institutions have started to utilize technology to engage students. A mixed methods design was used in this dissertation research to build a comprehensive understanding of the statistical relationships among mathematics anxiety, math self-efficacy, and achievement in mathematics among students in a large lecture, undergraduate calculus class taught using clickers. The purpose of this study was to develop an understanding of the statistical relationships and of the students’ experiences and perspectives on the relationships among mathematics self-efficacy, math anxiety, and achievement, along with the effect of clicker use on these variables, with attention given to changes in student perceptions during the semester. Statistical analysis was conducted utilizing quantitative survey data, and qualitative methods were used to analyze student interview data. Pairwise statistical relationships identified in previous research were confirmed among math anxiety, mathematics self-efficacy, and achievement in mathematics. Findings also revealed the potential for clickers to help promote desired learning outcomes when used effectively by students and instructors. Future research on the effect of clicker use in other types of mathematics courses besides calculus, in classes with students representing a more diverse range of racial/ethnic backgrounds, and with smaller class sizes will help build on the knowledge gained from this study.

The flipped classroom can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment in the English as a foreign language classroom. Unfortunately, there is little research which supports the incorporation of flipped learning in the English as a foreign language classroom. Numerous studies have focused on flipped learning and other subject areas, but more research needs to be done on the English as a foreign language classroom. With this in mind, there are many effective tools available to enable teachers to create a communicative, English as a foreign language learning environment. Even though technology is constantly changing, the tools presented here will give teachers an idea of how to incorporate and use technology when developing an active, communicative learning environment.

In spite of the widespread consensus on the necessity of reviewing previously-taught vocabulary to aid retention, often times teachers fail to do so due to time constrains or the uninteresting, repetitious nature of review activities. This presentation is a report on the use of an online game-based platform called Kahoot which can be used to resolve this problem and help teachers make room for review components in their lessons while boosting students’ engagement. Kahoot (https://kahoot.com/) is a free web-based student response system (SRS). Similar to most online SRSs such as Socrative, the teacher could create quizzes displayed to students on a screen, which they can respond to using either the Kahoot mobile application or a browser on a computer or any device with Internet connection. Unlike other SRSs, Kahoot is a game-based platform, with game elements such as accumulation of points, competition, and leaderboards. The game-like quizzes have a visually-appealing, user-friendly interface and can be played both individually and in teams. Moreover, the platform allows users to play games without creating personal accounts. In order to experiment with this tool, the presenter utilized it in two reading/writing classes she taught at Otemae University in the fall semester of 2017-2018. The classes consisted of mainly second-year undergraduate students majoring in International Relations and/or English Communication. To review the vocabulary from previous lessons, a Kahoot game was played at the beginning of every class, which took about 10 to 15 minutes depending on the length of the quiz. Observing the students’ behavior during the games, the majority looked completely engaged in the activity and enjoyed playing vocabulary games with their classmates. At the end of the semester, the instructor asked them to write their opinions on Kahoot, what they liked about it, and any difficulties they encountered. Most of the students unanimously agreed that Kahoot games were highly interesting and some mentioned that they were great review tools different from conventional classroom activities. Regarding the difficulties, some students expressed their unwillingness to use cellular data on their mobile phones for playing the games (as WIFI access was limited or unavailable), and some said that the games consumed too much battery. For upcoming semesters, the presenter plans to use Kahoot not only as a review tool but also as a measure for formative assessment, given that the system is capable of keeping record of all students’ performance.

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations, using a ‘Predict, Observe, Discuss, Synthesise’ learning cycle and audience response devices (i.e. clickers), have been used to improve students’ conceptual understanding of phasors and AC resonance in an introductory electronics course.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of a personal response system (PRS also Clickers) in conjunction with a form of cooperative learning in an introductory,
undergraduate psychology class to determine if the combination produced a beneficial impact on student academic achievement. Student attitudes toward use of a PRS with cooperative learning were also assessed. The study investigated the linkage between the technological skills of the students and their acceptance of the use of PRS. The study also
investigated the relationship between prior academic achievement of students, gender, and race with use of a PRS in combination with cooperative learning. A mixed method
research design was used incorporating quantitative measures and qualitative data gathered through a student attitude survey and focus groups. The results of this study indicated use of a PRS with cooperative learning has a significant benefit on academic achievement. The contrasts of use of a PRS with and
without cooperative learning for prior academic achievement, gender, and race were not significant. Students identified as having a low-use of communication technology had a
higher preference for the use of PRS than high-use students. Students identified as preferring to study alone had a lower preference for group PRS questions than students preferring to study as part of a group. Students indicated they preferred classes with a PRS and that they preferred to answer questions posed on a PRS in a small group.

Extensive research has been done on the use of Interactive Classroom Communication Systems (ICCS) in higher education, but not in secondary schools. This chapter provides a detailed overview of the benefits, challenges, and strategies observed when using ICCS in higher education. This overview is then used to analyze and interpret quantitative and qualitative data collected from 659 secondary school students. The main benefits that students identified for using ICCS were increased use of formative assessment, higher engagement and motivation, enhanced participation, and improved focus during class. Students were relatively neutral, though, with respect to whether ICCS improved class discussion or learning. The main challenges that students reported were increased stress and uncertainty of answers when ICCS were used in a formal test situation. Males were significantly more positive toward ICCS, as were students who had higher comfort levels with technology. When ICCS were used for formative assessment as opposed to formal tests, students were significantly more accepting. The chapter concludes with suggestions for educators and future research.

Les télévoteurs contribuent à attirer l'attention des étudiants sur la matière que l'enseignant juge importante, leur permet d'appliquer les notions récemment apprises, de faire des liens entre elles, de voir ces dernières dans un nouveau contexte et de se préparer à apprendre dans les cas où ils ne connaissent pas la réponse à la question posée.
Par l’utilisation de ces dispositifs, on cherche à maximiser l’efficacité des interactions verticales (entre l’enseignant et ses étudiants) en permettant et en encourageant des interactions horizontales (entre étudiants) sur les thématiques du cours.

An audience response systems (ARS) allows students to respond to multiple choice questions using remote control devices. Once the feedback is collected and displayed, the teacher and students discuss misconceptions and difficulties experienced. ARSs have been extremely popular and effective in higher education science class- rooms, although almost no research has been done at the secondary school level. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed formative analysis of the benefits, challenges, and use of ARSs from the perspective of 213 secondary school science students. Perceived benefits were increased student involvement (engagement, participation, and attention) and effective formative assessment of student understanding. Perceived challenges included decreased student involvement and learning when ARSs were used for summative assessment, occasional techno- logical malfunctions, resistance to using a new method of learning, and increased stress due to time constraints when responding to questions. Finally, students rated the use of ARSs significantly higher when it was used for formative as opposed to summative assessment.

The integration of clickers in Higher Education settings has proved to be particularly useful for enhancing motivation, engagement and performance; for developing cooperative or collaborative tasks; for checking understanding during the lesson; or even for assessment purposes. This paper explores and exemplifies three uses of Socrative, a mobile application specifically designed as a clicker for the classroom. Socrative was used during three sessions with the same group of first-year University students at a Faculty of Education. One of these sessions-a review lesson-was gamified, whereas the other two-a collaborative reading activity seminar, and a lecture-were not. Ad-hoc questionnaires were distributed after each of them. Results suggest that students welcome the use of clickers and that combining them with gamification strategies may increase students' perceived satisfaction. The experiences described in this paper show how Socrative is an effective means of providing formative feedback and may actually save time during lessons.

Peer Instruction has recently gained interest in computing as an effective active learning pedagogy. The general focus of PI research has been on the in-class portion of PI: multiple choice questions and group discussion. Here, our focus is the reading quizzes completed by students for purposes of class preparation. These quizzes contain content questions but also ask for difficulties or confusion with course material. Consistent with expectations, we demonstrate that providing correct responses to quiz questions positively correlates with other course assessments. Somewhat counter-intuitively, we find that identifying confusions, noting problematic sections, or asking questions about the reading are also correlated with lab grades.

This paper presented the results of an experimental study investigating the impact of clicker use through a smart phone application called Kahoot!. Despite positive results of clicker use in the existing General English literature, the impact of clicker use has not been examined in the field of ESP. To address this issue, this study investigated the effectiveness of clickers by comparing pre-test and post-test scores of a control and an experimental group and the scores of male and female participants in the experimental group. The results of a 10-week implementation of clicker use with the students of tourism and hospitality department in the experimental group indicated that while post-test scores were significantly higher for the experimental group than for the control group, there was not a statistically significant difference between the post-test scores of male and female participants in the experimental group. Implications for teaching ESP with the help of technology and suggestions for further research were also provided.

How do you, as a university lecturer, change from teacher-centered teaching to a more student-centered, active teaching? This paper aims to inspire you to make a change, big or small, to increase your students' engagement and learning, by presenting suggestions on what you can do. The ideas and suggestions synthesized here are based on several different teaching philosophies and methods, which are well tested and shown to be effective in the right setting. The selection of suggestions is believed to be specifically suitable for ecology. The paper includes suggestions on how to plan a course or a lecture by setting a good learning environment. Both pre-lecture activities and during lecture activities are included, with a focus on activities to engage students and encourage increased discussion and reflections, as well as what to think about when choosing learning activities and how and why it is important to teach students to think and act like professionals in ecology. While changing teaching methods takes investment of time, time that is limited for many researchers, even small changes in your teaching can make big differences in learning, and the investment will hopefully pay back by making teaching more fun and rewarding. The suggestions presented are understandable without being be conversant in the 'education literature', but will provide you with a vocabulary of teaching activities that will be useful if you are inspired to find more information and learn more about teaching.

The integration of clickers in Higher Education settings has proved to be particularly useful for enhancing motivation, engagement and performance; for developing cooperative or collaborative tasks; for checking understanding during the lesson; or even for assessment purposes. This paper explores and exemplifies three uses of Socrative, a mobile application specifically designed as a clicker for the classroom. Socrative was used during three sessions with the same group of first-year University students at a Faculty of Education. One of these sessions—a review lesson—was gamified, whereas the other two—a collaborative reading activity seminar, and a lecture—were not. Ad-hoc questionnaires were distributed after each of them. Results suggest that students welcome the use of clickers and that combining them with gamification strategies may increase students’ perceived satisfaction. The experiences described in this paper show how Socrative is an effective means of providing formative ...

The purpose of this study was to examine individual differences in attitudes toward Audience Response Systems (ARSs) in secondary school classrooms. Specifically, the impact of gender, grade, subject area, computer comfort level, participation level, and type of use were examined in 659 students. Males had significantly more positive attitudes toward ARSs than female students. Students who were more comfortable with computers had significantly more positive attitudes than students who were less comfortable. Students who did not actively participate in class before ARSs were used were more positive about this tool than students who regularly participated. Finally, students were significantly more positive about ARSs when they were used for formative (not for grades) as opposed to summative (for grades) assessment. There were no significant differences observed for grade level or subject area taught.

An audience response systems (ARS) allows students to respond to multiple choice questions using remote control devices. Once the feedback is collected and displayed, the teacher and students discuss misconceptions and difficulties experienced. ARSs have been extremely popular and effective in higher education science class- rooms, although almost no research has been done at the secondary school level. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed formative analysis of the benefits, challenges, and use of ARSs from the perspective of 213 secondary school science students. Perceived benefits were increased student involvement (engagement, participation, and attention) and effective formative assessment of student understanding. Perceived challenges included decreased student involvement and learning when ARSs were used for summative assessment, occasional techno- logical malfunctions, resistance to using a new method of learning, and increased stress due to time constraints when responding to questions. Finally, students rated the use of ARSs significantly higher when it was used for formative as opposed to summative assessment.

The use of different tools in the field of education has become widespread with the developments in technology. Online student response systems are one of these tools. Online student response systems have been used for many years. In the last couple of years, game items have been added, and game-based online student response systems have started to be used. In this context, this study aims to find out the effects of online student response systems both with and without being based on games on the achievements, engagements, and test anxiety levels of students. The study group consists of 46 seventh grade students (Control, 23; Experimental, 23). This study was conducted by using a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test groups. The topics in the " living democracy " chapter of social studies course were taught for four weeks by using the online student response system named Socrative for the control group and the online game-based student response system called Kahoot for the experimental group. The results of the study showed that game-based student response systems increase the achievement and engagement and decrease the test anxiety level when compared to non-game-based student response systems. In this direction, it may be suggested to use online game-based student response systems on different topics of social studies courses.

Preservice teachers need to develop a wide range of skills and knowledge including awareness of learners, understanding curriculum content and goals, subject matter skills, pedagogical knowledge, and how to interact in diverse, complex classroom environments (Cohen, Hoz & Kaplan; Darling-Hammond, 2006). Student-response systems (SRSs) allow teachers to receive immediate feedback from students at any time during a class. This study explored the potential of SRSs to provide effective feedback to preservice teachers on key areas of development during their practicum placements. Survey data were collected from 75 preservice teachers (53 females, 21 males) focusing on primary-junior (n=34) or intermediate-senior (n=41) grade levels. The results strongly suggested that SRSs provided effective feedback to guide teaching, increase student involvement (attention, motivation, engagement, participation), improve the quality of teaching, and conduct summative assessment. However, SRSs had a mixed impact on classroom management. Finally, SRSs may have had a positive impact on preservice teachers' relationships with their mentors.

The online Student Response System (SRS) is a technological tool that can be effectively implemented in English language classroom contexts and be used to promote students' active learning. In this qualitative study, Socrative, web 2.0 innovation, was integrated with active learning activities and used as SRS to explore English second language learners' (ESL) perceptions of the use of the tool and if both techniques (clickers and active learning activities) contributed in increasing the students' level of engagement, promoting their critical thinking and encouraging their collaboration. Current research describes the benefits of active learning approaches.

To date, extensive research has been done on the use of au-dience Response Systems (aRSs) in colleges and universi-ties, but not in secondary schools. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed formative analysis on the benefits, challenges, and use of aRSs from the perspective of 659 sec-ondary school students. Key benefits reported were increased levels of engagement and motivation, the effective use of for-mative assessment, and a better quality learning environment. Key challenges included a perceived decrease in learning per-formance when an aRS was used for summative assessment, technological malfunctions, resistance to using a new method of learning, and increased stress due to perceived time con-straints. finally, students consistently rated the use of an aRS significantly higher when it was used for formative as op-posed to summative assessment. Overview an audience Response System (aRS), also known as a personal re-sponse system (Hinde & Hunt, 2006), electronic voting system (Kennedy & Cutts, 2005), student response system (Kaleta & Joosten, 2007 and clickers (Bergtrom, 2006), permits students to respond to multiple choice questions using a remote control device. after students click in their responses, the results are instantly aggregated and displayed in chart form for the entire class to review. Responses are often anonymous but the teacher can assign an ARS remote device to specific students for evaluation purposes. Once the feedback is displayed, a teacher can change the course of instruction accord-ingly or students can work out misconceptions and difficulties through peer

Peer Instruction, a pedagogy utilizing handheld classroom response technology (i.e., “clickers”) to promote student discussion, is one of the most popular research-based instructional practices in STEM education. However, few studies have shed theoretical light on the mechanisms for how and why Peer Instruction can be effective. This study explores Peer Instruction through a controlled methodology where theory drives pedagogical adaptations that serve as the differing experimental conditions. The theory guiding these experimental conditions is the Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive (ICAP) framework for differentiating various modes of cognitive engagement. More specifically, the same instructor taught four different physics classes to N = 250 physics students in accordance with four different ICAP classifications for each of two years at a diverse high school. On average, these high school students achieved learning gains that, when normalizing for pre-test performance, was more than 10 percent greater than college students not privy to the Peer Instruction technique when learning introductory physics. Looking more closely, the ICAP-driven methodology allowed the different forms of Peer Instruction to be adjudicated, where it was found that after controlling for the instructor, multiple student covariates, and the time of day that experimental treatments were implemented, students provided three minutes for discussion between clicker votes significantly outperformed their counterparts filling the same time with various combinations of talking, writing, or lecture. This study purports to serve as an example to the educational research community for how the ICAP framework can help to illuminate theoretical mechanisms behind instructional techniques in ways the more general use of the term “active learning” cannot.

To date, extensive research has been done on the use of Audience Response Systems (ARSs) in colleges and universities, but not in secondary schools. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed formative analysis on the benefits, challenges, and use of ARSs from the perspective of 659 secondary school students. Key benefits reported were increased levels of engagement and motivation, the effective use of formative assessment, and a better quality learning environment. Key challenges included a perceived decrease in learning performance when an ARS was used for summative assessment, technological malfunctions, resistance to using a new method of learning, and increased stress due to perceived time constraints. Finally, students consistently rated the use of an ARS significantly higher when it was used for formative as opposed to summative assessment.

An interactive classroom communication system (ICCS) involves the use of remote devices that permit all students in a class to respond to multiple choice questions displayed on a LCD projector. After responses are clicked in, the results are instantly aggregated and displayed in chart form. The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in attitudes toward ICCSs for 659 secondary school students. The initial results suggested that male students had significantly more positive attitudes than female students with respect to student involvement, assessment, and perceived learning. However, a number of these differences disappeared when computer comfort level and type of use were added as covariates. Male students still perceived that ICCSs improved the overall learning process more than female students regardless of computer comfort level or type of use.