Assessment of the Effects of Student Response Systems on Student Learning and Attitudes over a Broad Range of Biology Courses

Abstract

With the advent of wireless technology, new tools are available that are intended to enhance students' learning and attitudes. To assess the effectiveness of wireless student response systems in the biology curriculum at New Mexico State University, a combined study of student attitudes and performance was undertaken. A survey of students in six biology courses showed that strong majorities of students had favorable overall impressions of the use of student response systems and also thought that the technology improved their interest in the course, attendance, and understanding of course content. Students in lower-division courses had more strongly positive overall impressions than did students in upper-division courses. To assess the effects of the response systems on student learning, the number of in-class questions was varied within each course throughout the semester. Students' performance was compared on exam questions derived from lectures with low, medium, or high numbers of in-class questions. Increased use of the response systems in lecture had a positive influence on students' performance on exam questions across all six biology courses. Students not only have favorable opinions about the use of student response systems, increased use of these systems increases student learning.

The Effects of Using the Classroom Response System in Teacher Education

“…This result supports a previous research result that claimed that CRS can facilitate learning [9]. However, because this study only used one group as the research sample, no further evidence from control groups could be compared to confirm whether the learning outcome of the preservice teachers was enhanced by CRS use.…”

“…Hence, this technology is often applied before a lesson to enable the teacher to quickly understand students' prior abilities; it can also be used during or after teaching to enable the teacher to quickly conduct a formative or summative assessment [6]. Numerous studies have confirmed that employing CRS can effectively improve students' class attendance [7], learning motivation and interaction [8], and learning performance [9].…”

The Impact of Live Audience Participation Teaching on Medical Education at The Surgical Scousers, an Undergraduate Surgical Society

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“…[10][11][12]) via Backstage. A student's concentration drastically declines after 20 minutes of continuous lecture [13].…”