Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 82, March 2015, Pages 329-334
Computers & Education

Use of clickers vs. mobile devices for classroom polling

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.12.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • In one class, using mobile devices resulted in more missing responses and fewer correct answers.

  • Final grades did not differ between students using clickers and students using mobile devices.

  • Students generally report positive experiences with clickers and mobile devices.

  • Mobile devices can be distracting for some students.

Abstract

An increasing number of instructors are using mobile devices in place of “clickers” to acquire student responses to questions posed by the instructor during class. This exploratory study compared the number of correct, incorrect, and missing responses of students who responded to in-class polling questions using clickers or mobile devices. In one of two classes, students using mobile devices had a greater number of missing responses and fewer correct responses than students using clickers, but there were no differences in final grades. In the other class, there were no differences on these measures. Overall, students' attitudes toward using clickers and mobile devices were favorable, but 31% of those who reported using a mobile device could not connect to the Internet “sometimes” or “most of the time.” Of those who completed the technology survey, the majority (58%) reported being “never” or “rarely” distracted by other uses of their mobile device during class. Instructors who desire to have students use mobile devices for classroom polling should be aware of the possible differences in missing and correct responses, and the potential challenges unique to mobile technology.

Introduction

By the late 1960s, “voting machines” had arrived in some college classrooms to collect and display students' responses to questions posed by the instructor (Gordon & Becker, 1973; for review see Judson & Sawada, 2002). The next generation of classroom response systems used hand-held devices affectionately known as “clickers” to fulfill a similar purpose. An emerging generation of classroom response systems is built on the power of mobile devices and the Internet, allowing students to respond to questions in class by text messaging, calling a phone number, using designated smartphone polling apps, or using a mobile device's web browser and internet connection.

Smartphones are ubiquitous among U.S. college-age adults with 79% of 18–24-year-old adults reporting owning a smartphone (A. Smith, 2013). The prevalence of portable technology (smartphones, tablets, and laptops) has shifted the onus of classroom technology hardware and its related costs from institutions to students, spawning the phrase “Bring your Own Device (BYOD)” (Johnson et al., 2013). Advances in technology have positioned teachers who are familiar with using hand-held clickers to consider a transition to mobile device polling, but there is very little research to indicate if polling responses received through mobile devices differ from those received via clickers, and what additional barriers instructors and students may encounter in the process.

Several feasibility studies have demonstrated that clickers and mobile devices can be used side-by-side in the classroom. After some initial technical difficulty, two instructors at an institution in Hong Kong were able to collect data concurrently from students using mobile devices or clickers (Lam, Wong, Mohan, Xu, & Lam, 2011). In another study where the polling method varied across lectures (clicker, mobile device, and hand-raising), half of the students preferred using a mobile device over the other two response methods (Koppen, Langie, & Bergervoet, 2013). Tao, Clark, Gwyn, and Lim (2010) reported that after responding with clickers and laptops, 40% of nursing students preferred the laptop polling over traditional clickers, while 40% had no preference, and 20% preferred clickers. Finally, Sun (2014) compared final grades of graduate students who had used clickers or mobile devices and found that students who used mobile devices had significantly higher grades in one course, but not another. Although these studies demonstrate the viability of conducting concurrent (or alternating) methods of responding, none of these studies determined if the responses received from mobile devices were comparable to those received via clickers in terms of percentage of correct, incorrect, or missing responses.

The intent of the present study was not to lay claim to tangible pedagogical benefits of classroom polling, as there are already a number of studies published in this area (Caldwell, 2007, Reay et al., 2008; M. K. Smith et al., 2009, Stowell and Nelson, 2007, Stowell et al., 2010). Rather, the main purpose of this study was to compare the responses of students who used clickers to the responses of those who used mobile devices when answering the same multiple-choice questions in class. Because there was no prior research upon which to form an alternative hypothesis, this was an exploratory study designed to determine if there would be differences between response methods in the distribution of correct, incorrect, and missing responses. Furthermore, the author explored potential differences in final grades and students' attitudes regarding classroom polling technology.

Section snippets

Participants

Students in two upper-division psychology courses at a regional Midwestern university participated as part of routine assessment of educational practice (IRB approval #14-401), including students enrolled in Psychology of Learning (n = 82, Fall 2013) and Biological Psychology (n = 59, Spring 2014). Both courses were lecture-based and met for three 50-minute class periods per week. The majority of students were psychology majors in their junior or senior year, with 36 (26%) men and 105 (74%)

Classroom performance and grades

There was a significant difference in the distribution of correct, incorrect, and missing polling responses between the two response methods in one course, but not the other. As shown in Fig. 1, the mobile device group in Psychology of Learning had a smaller proportion of correct responses, a comparable proportion of incorrect responses, and a greater proportion of missing responses than the clicker group, χ2 (2, N = 9945) = 117.6, p < .001. Recalculating the proportion of correct responses

Discussion and conclusions

When used as a polling device, mobile devices may currently be less reliable than traditional radio-frequency clickers. Results from Psychology of Learning showed that students using a mobile device had significantly fewer correct answers and more missing responses than clicker users, although there were no significant differences in Biological Psychology. A number of possible explanations may account for the difference in missing responses between courses. First, Psychology of Learning had a

Acknowledgment

The author wishes to thank the university's Center for Academic Technology Support for providing the mobile device polling licenses, and Dr. William Addison for his helpful review of an earlier draft of the manuscript.

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