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Interactive lectures: Clickers or personal devices? [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

Morrell, Lesley J.; Joyce, Domino A.

Authors



Abstract

Audience response systems (‘clickers’) are frequently used to promote participation in large lecture classes, and evidence suggests that they convey a number of benefits to students, including improved academic performance and student satisfaction. The limitations of these systems (such as limited access and cost) can be overcome using students’ personal electronic devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops together with text message, web- or app-based polling systems. Using questionnaires, we compare student perceptions of clicker and smartphone based polling systems. We find that students prefer interactive lectures generally, but those that used their own device preferred those lectures over lectures using clickers. However, device users were more likely to report using their devices for other purposes (checking email, social media etc.) when they were available to answer polling questions. These students did not feel that this distracted them from the lecture, instead, concerns over the use of smartphones centred around increased battery usage and inclusivity for students without access to suitable technology. Our results suggest that students generally preferred to use their own devices over clickers, and that this may be a sensible way to overcome some of the limitations associated with clickers, although issues surrounding levels of distraction and the implications for retention and recall of information need further investigation.

Citation

Morrell, L. J., & Joyce, D. A. (2015). Interactive lectures: Clickers or personal devices? [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]. F1000Research, 4, Article 64. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6207.1

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 12, 2015
Online Publication Date Mar 12, 2015
Publication Date Mar 12, 2015
Deposit Date Mar 31, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal F1000Research
Electronic ISSN 1759-796X
Publisher F1000Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 4
Article Number 64
DOI https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6207.1
Keywords Clickers, Student response systems, Lectures and lecturing
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/372093
Publisher URL http://f1000research.com/articles/4-64/

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Copyright Statement
© 2015 Morrell LJ and Joyce DA. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).






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