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Clickers in the Classroom: The Use of Student Response Systems in Teaching Psychology.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Watling, Rosamond Clarke, Richard Rowell, Christopher |
| Copyright Year | 2014 |
| Abstract | Psychology Teaching Review Vol. 20 No. 2, Winter 2014 THE GROWING UBIQUITY of technology in the classroom has brought us a long way from the traditional ‘chalk and talk’ paradigm. Technology is an integral part of university life and, whilst most psychology departments use PowerPoint, virtual learning environments, intranet and online databases, there are other, more innovative technologies that can be useful in the learning environment. A student response system (SRS) enables students to respond to questions on a screen, by using remote control devices (‘clickers’) to make individual responses. Responses are transmitted to a receiver and instantly collated, summarised and presented in the form of a histogram on-screen, allowing a snapshot of students’ responses to each question. SRSs have been widely used in education since 2003 (Kay & LeSage, 2009) and have many benefits that address current directions in pedagogical practice. The literature on attention, for example, has demonstrated a general pattern in students’ ability to focus, with an observed decline in concentration after 20 minutes of a lecture (Johnstone & Percival, 1976; Mittendorf & Kalish, 1996). Introducing an SRS session into a lecture has been suggested to be an effective method of reducing fatigue and regaining students’ attention, and past research has reported that students are more focused in class when using SRSs, and attention is more sustained (e.g. Bergstrom, 2006; Burnstein & Lederman, 2001; Caldwell, 2007). Moreover, the psychology literature asserts that deep level, rather than surface level processing facilitates learning (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Marton & Säljö, 1976). This principle is reinforced by later research (e.g. Biggs, 1999; Cohen, 1991; Prosser & Trigwell, 1998) that considers class participation to be of key importance in the interaction between teacher and student, leading to the current emphasis on student-centred learning, student involvement and active class participation. From this perspective, use of this technology can be seen as beneficial for higher order cognitive skills, particularly when encouraging independent thinking. For example, Gauci et al. (2009) posed vignettes that required students to consider dilemmas, and to engage in thoughtful peer-to-peer discussion before using clickers to submit their answers from a choice of possible actions. This engagement |
| Starting Page | 36 |
| Ending Page | 38 |
| Page Count | 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 20 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1146618.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
