New clicker technology allows a different look at student answers


Research shows clickers can improve student performance.

The anonymity of lecture hall response systems has taken the awkwardness out of sensitive questions in Timothy Loving’s Introduction to Family Relationships course, and a new clicker software will let the University of Texas associate professor have a more personal exchange with his students.

Loving will use the latest version of the i>clicker response system to analyze student answers by political affiliation, race, gender, and other demographics.

The new i>clicker version 6.0 will still allow for anonymous answers to faculty questions, but the data slicing and demographic polling features will provide a breakdown that could shed light on where students from different backgrounds stand on thorny social issues.

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The newest version of i>clicker is in beta testing, company officials said, and the software will be released in the fall. The i>clicker was developed by Macmillan New Ventures. The technology is used at more than 900 U.S. colleges and universities.

Classroom discussion of varying perspectives can become an integral part of professors’ class plans when clicker responses are broken down by demographic, said Angela Nickoli, assistant professor at Ball State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.

“By giving me the opportunity to slice the demographic data, I can delve into more complicated issues – like the death penalty, facilitating a deeper, more personal discussion,” Nickoli said. “This software will allow students to think more seriously about their peers’ differing perspectives, particularly when broken down by gender and as they relate to socioeconomic status.”

Loving said some of the most divisive issues addressed in his Family Relationships class – a course he has taught for seven years – include same sex marriage, corporal punishment, and the decision to have children.

Giving students clickers during question-and-answer sessions, he said, has “promoted more honest discussion” with students who often hesitate to answer honestly during lectures that focus on “potentially contentious” social issues.

“I used to really have to draw the answers out of some students,” Loving said, adding he became familiar with timid students’ tendencies before he used student response systems. “Students can be fairly sheepish about some issues. … I could always see them sort of slink down in their desks” when hands were raised to answer Loving’s questions.

Higher education officials have welcomed student clickers into classrooms and lecture halls since the devices became commonplace on campuses in the mid-2000s.

Students who used clickers to answer questions during physics lectures scored an average of 10 points higher on their final exam when compared to students who didn’t use the response system, according to a 2008 Ohio State University study, which was first published in the American Journal of Physics.

Using clickers during lectures also evened test scores in the Ohio State study. In a class that didn’t use clickers, male students outscored female students. Scores were almost equal in the class that used clickers, according to the university’s research.

Professors and instructors who use student response systems spend 20 percent of class time with clickers; the rest is used for traditional lectures.

College students have also embraced clicker systems. Most students who participated in a clicker study at a small Midwestern university in 2007 said they would recommend using clickers in the classroom, according to research conducted by Margaret Martyn, an assistant dean at DePaul University.

“Contrary to expectations, learning outcomes of students using clickers did not improve more than the traditional active learning approach of using class discussion,” Martyn wrote in her conclusion. “Perhaps the value of the active learning pedagogy outshadowed the benefit of using clickers.”

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