Student Response Systems

Kim Fleming & Damon Smith

FRER 7130

Fall 2016

Reflection
Kim Fleming
 The challenge of looking for empirical articles about student response systems was made
simple by the Georgia Southern online library. There was a large variety of full text articles to
download and read. Although my partner and I are teachers in a middle school, we felt it was
important to take the advice of our instructor and broaden our scope to include college
classrooms. There seemed to be more research conducted outside of secondary school. Once we
began looking for empirical articles, it was important to look carefully at each article to
determine it was based on an empirical study. Some articles were written so well I had to
examine them closely to determine if it was actually an empirical article. Each article had so
much information, I was forced to focus only on the important concepts and details in order to
create concise and accurate annotations.

Based on the research of student response systems, there is no overwhelming evidence to

indicate a large positive effect in student performance and comprehension. The studies showed
either a slight increase in student performance or none at all, however, no evidence indicated
student response systems had an adverse effect on student performance. Although evidence of a
positive effect in student performance was small, most studies observed that student response
systems did help students feel more confident about the subject. These students tended to speak
up more in class and less likely to skip questions on an exam. This effect was more prominent in
classroom with some sort of accountability for using the srs, usually in the form of extra credit or
making the srs part of the students grade.

Reflection
Damon Smith

My experience during the Annotated Bibliography Group Project was extremely positive.
Since this was my first research class I was a bit overwhelmed at the beginning of the semester
when I saw how much would go into this project. I had not had any experience with research or
finding research since my undergraduate course work. However, as we progressed through the
course and subsequently progressed through the different due dates for this project, I found
myself to be more confident in what I should be looking for and doing. I found the pacing for
this project was very beneficial to me. I never felt to be in a rush and there was always time to
understand what I needed to be doing. The many examples given during instruction of this
course on what references and annotations should look like were extremely helpful. Overall, I
thought all facets of this project really gave a hands-on experience to the content we were
studying in class.

The partner selection process was very smooth for me. I was very happy to have Kim
Fleming as a partner for this project. After reading her introduction posting at the start of the
semester I knew immediately that I would be interested in working with her on this project. Kim
and I have a few things in common. We are both from Ellijay, Georgia. I certainly did not expect
to find someone from Ellijay in my online class! Also, Kim and I are both middle school
connections teachers. We felt like this would make us a good pairing since we already have an
idea of what the other goes through on a day-to-day basis in the classroom. We also thought that
our experience in the classroom would likely lead us to a common interest in what to do our
project on. We decided to do our project on student response systems (SRS).

I enjoyed using Galileo to find research articles related to our topic. It was very
interesting to see how the exact wording of your search would pull up different results. I tried to
search for SRS use at the middle, high, and collegiate levels. It was interesting to find several
international articles about SRS use. Some of these international articles were hard to read as
some of them were structured differently than most articles I was used to. Also during my search,
I really enjoyed seeing examples of qualitative and quantitative research. I really focused on
finding articles that related the use of SRS to student engagement and performance. My articles
showed that most believe the use of SRS in the classroom helps with student performance,
however, it was also hard to pinpoint its exact effect on student engagement due to a variety of
factors. Research also showed that the benefits of SRS use could diminish if used to frequently in
the classroom.
Beard, K. V., Morote, E., & Volcy, K. (2013). Effects of a student response system on preclass

preparation, learning, and class participation in a diverse classroom. Teaching and

Learning in Nursing, 8(4), 136-139.

doi:10.1016/j.teln.2013.05.002

Researchers examined impact of student response systems (SRS) on motivating a diverse

group of nursing students to prepare and participate in class and become more independent
learners. Thirty-six nursing students participating in an pathophysiology course were chosen to
take part in the study.These students were informed the SRS would be used at the beginning of
the class, however, it would not count as part of their grade. Results were recorded and student
were given the option to seek extra help on their own. At the end of the course, each student was
given a survey. Of the thirty-six students, seventeen responded to the survey. According to the
results, most student believed they prepared more for class because of the srs. They also
indicated the SRS helped them to better understand content.

Galal, S. M., Mayberry, J. K., Chan, E., Hargis, J., & Halilovic, J. (2015). Technology vs.

pedagogy: Instructional effectiveness and student perceptions of a student response

system. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 7(5), 590-598.

doi:10.1016/j.cptl.2015.06.004

Researchers wanted to closely examine the effects of using student response systems
(SRS) on self awareness and metacognitive awareness in students. After gaining approval for the
study, students in their pharmacy practicum were randomly selected to attend one of four
lectures. Two of the four lectures utilized a SRS while the other two did not. Before the
practicum, a survey was administered to students. The survey determined sixty eight students
were in the lectures with srs and eighty five were in the control group. After conducting the
experiments, researchers determined there was no statistical significance between the scores of
the experimental and control groups. However, the surveys indicated an increase in positive
attitudes toward the SRSeven though the experimental group indicated they would like to see
less technology in the classroom.

Jones, S. J., Crandall, J., Vogler, J. S., & Robinson, D. H. (2013). Classroom response systems
 facilitate student accountability, readiness, and learning. Journal of Educational

Computing Research, 49(2), 155-171.

doi:10.2190/ec.49.2.b

The researchers expanded on existing knowledge of the reliability and effectiveness of

classroom response systems (CRS). Previous studies conclude no clear improvement among
students after introducing the CRS, however, students had no means of accountability for using
it. The authors conducted experiments to determine if the addition of accountability had a
positive effect on students and study habits. As a cross over study, two groups of university
students were allowed to use the CRS as a small part of their grade. The results indicated no real
difference between the use and non-use of the CRS. The second experiment involved training
students to use the CRS and using the crs as a larger portion of their grade. A third experiment,
using the same group, were instructed to use the crs before class on laptops provided to
participating students. The findings of the second and third experiments researchers found a
positive correlation between the use of the CRS and an increase in end of course examinations,
as long as the use of the classroom response system is part of the grade.

Millor, M., Etxano, J., Slon, P., Garca-Barqun, P., Villanueva, A., Bastarrika, G., & Pueyo, J. C.

(2014). Use of remote response devices: An effective interactive method in the long- term

learning. European Radiology, 25(3), 894900.

doi:10.1007/s00330-014-3468-3

The researchers of this study wanted to explore the potential of personal response
systems (PRS) used to increase interaction and retention.The researchers chose one hundred and
seventy five medical students involved in radiology lectures which used a PRS during its lecture.
All students were given the radiology images and text book readings before the lecture in order
to review prior to the lecture. After three months each student involved in the study were given
an exam. Half of the questions in this exam were based on images answered with clickers while
the other have were not. After all the data was acquired and analyzed, researchers discovered
images used as a part of the PRS were correctly ten percent more often. In addition, the images
used with the PRS was answered incorrectly four percent less often and skipped six and a half
percent less often.

Symister, P., VanOra, J., Griffin, K. W., & Troy, D. (2014). Clicking in the community college

classroom: assessing the effectiveness of clickers on student learning in a general

psychology course. The Community College Enterprise, 20(2), 10-24.

Researchers examined the effects of clickers on comprehension and test scores in a

psychology class of a local community college. Students were selected for the study from three
sections of the chosen course, however, a survey was periodically given to all the students in the
course. Measures were taken to insure consistency of class content despite the fact each class had
different teachers. Part of the study was to determine student prior knowledge of psychology and
their motivation to take the class by administering a pretest. The knowledge gained during the
course was measured by one question quiz before each exam. The quiz question strictly pertain
to information learned with the aid of clickers. The data obtained with this study found that
although students in the group using the clickers reported higher levels of perceived
comprehension, the students in the other sections, using other non-clicker methods, actually
performed better on quizzes.