Session: General Posters:

Personal response device (clicker) use in chemistry classrooms has been increasing, especially in large introductory and foundational courses. Qualitative studies have observed positive attitudes towards the technology, with students reporting being more attentive and understanding the content better. However, quantitative studies of the effect of clicker questions on exam performance have shown mixed results, with some authors finding a positive correlation and others reporting no change in grade. This research project aims to evaluate if answering clicker questions correlates with better student performance on exam questions about the same content topic (similar) as compared to exam questions on topics not covered by clicker questions (not similar). Additionally, we gauged whether students answering the clicker question correctly, incorrectly, or not at all affects performance on similar exam questions. The dataset includes exam performance of an introductory chemistry class (n=1235) and clicker answers of students enrolled in two lecture sections of the course taught by the same instructor during the same term (n=440). No difference in performance was found for exam questions that covered a topic previously assessed with a clicker question; however, the difficulty level of these questions was found to be higher than that of not similar questions. When comparing students with clicker data to the overall class, the performance was higher for the similar questions and the same for not similar questions. A comparison of similar exam question performance between students with equivalent placement exam score who answered the clicker question correctly, incorrectly, or not at all showed that the first group performed better, followed by the second group, and then the third group. This indicates that simply answering clicker questions is associated with higher exam performance, and when answering correctly, students had an even better performance.

Daniel King

Drexel Univ

Appearances