Students More Accepting of Using Clickers for Exams
2nd Clicker Pilot Continues Comparison with Scantron Testing
To continue its evaluation of clickers as a possible alternative to scantron “bubble sheet” assessments, DoIT again partnered with Dr. Tamara Mendelson from Biology in a pilot this semester using the Triton Data Collection System (DCS) by Turning Technologies (TT). Compared to Mendelson’s Fall 2013 pilot in the much larger Biology 142 (300+ students), this semester’s pilot is running in her BIOL 481/681 “Advanced Topics in Evolutionary Biology,” a class of 26 students.
Also, while students in the BIOL 142 (Fall 2013) pilot were generally supportive of the clickers for short (1-3 question) quizzes, a Nov. 22 Brown Bag demo showed they were much less willing to use clickers for mid-term and final exams. A key issue may have been one of the pilot conditions: deliberately NOT using them for high-stakes assessments. As a result, students may not have been fully prepared for how to use them on longer tests and exams.
By contrast, the BIOL 481 (Spring 2014) pilot used the same NXT clickers for longer (8-10 question), in-class quizzes. Mendelson enabled (and encouraged) the self-paced polling feature which students used for multiple quizzes every class, as well as on the mid-term exam. She is also planning to use these same clickers to implement the final exam.
DoIT staff recently met with Mendelson and her students for an informal discussion about their experiences so far.
Based on an informal survey in class, over 50% of students preferred clickers over scantrons for taking exams, 38% preferred scantrons over clickers and the rest 12% were neutral. Some of the overall feedback that we received regarding using clickers for exams and quizzes included the following:
“I liked taking the exam on the clickers because we had our own exam booklet in front of us and could go at our own pace. I also liked getting my grade back right away”;
“As a new technology for test taking, I think these clickers were fabulous. My only suggestion would be to make logging in more seamless/secure. While minor problems were easily resolved in a small classroom setting, it would be incredibly frustrating in a huge lecture hall”;
“Clickers are much better than scatrons. You can change your answer and not worry about erasure smudges messing with the scantron reading and outputting the wrong grade”;
“Using clickers would cut down on paper usage, which is a plus”;
“I prefer scantrons even though the clickers work pretty well, security and accessibility still seems like a concern, especially considering the number of times people have issues signing in”.
Overall most students seemed accepting of clickers as an alternate to taking exams using scantrons. Those that weren't comfortable said this was because they did not have all their answers right in front of them. They said that they would prefer having a hard copy of their answers so that they can make marks and comments on the answer sheet instead of scrolling through answers on the clicker. They were also afraid their clicker would have technical issues during an exam.
One key technical issue is students having to repeatedly login between quizzes. Working with TT, DoIT identified the issue, but not until after the mid-term was over. Still, Mendelson says she prefers clickers over scantrons “because I can upload grades immediately and see which questions are difficult and which are easy, which students are struggling, etc., in very nice histograms.”
Currently, DoIT is reviewing our pilot experience with Turning Technologies and offering suggestions for improving the Triton system so students and faculty are comfortable using clickers as an alternative to scantrons on any kind of assessment. However, a key feature is self-paced polling, which is not available with the current clickers most students own. DoIT has a small set of 100 NXT clickers that support self-paced polling and is willing to extend the pilot to other faculty interested in trying them out. For more information, contact John Fritz at fritz@umbc.edu.
Posted: April 30, 2014, 9:11 AM