Useful Pedagogies or Financial Hardships?

Interactive response systems “clickers ” can provide multiple benefits to the students and faculty who use them, including immediate performance feedback and greater student engagement in learning. My own exploration of this technology has yielded five pedagogically different types of polling questions, specifically measurement of student confidence levels, their comfort levels with various topics, assessment of attitude change due to class discussions, retention of course information, and basic mastery of course content. The present investigation revealed that students acknowledge the possible benefits to the instructor of using these polling questions, yet they were most appreciative of the opportunity to see sample quiz questions. More surprising, these students were unaware of the price of “clickers, ” despite having purchased them at the start of the semester, suggesting that use of this technology does not constitute a financial hardship for many students. Several years ago, I watched an episode of “Who wants to be a millionaire? ” and was enthralled by a technology that would allow one to ask a question of an audience and immediately tabulate the results for the audience to view. I thought that it would be an exciting technology to use in my large (i.e., more than 700 students) General Psychology course. At the time, I thought that it would make the class more entertaining for students, while increasing their engagement with the course material during my lectures. Since that time, these devices have become widely available and instructors from a variety of fields have published observations about clicker use. For instance, the Ohio Learning Network described the use of clickers as important, stating that their use: 1) helps maintain student attention during class, 2) creates a safe way for shy students to participate, 3) promotes discussion and collaboration, and 4) checks for student understanding of course material