Use of an Audience Response System to provide individualised feedback to undergraduate medical students

Background: Medical students perceive a lack of adequate feedback on their learning, as shown annually in the National Student Survey. We have previously shown that an audience response system (ARS) improves students’ satisfaction with the provision of feedback whilst also improving knowledge retention. However, feedback remains the area with the lowest satisfaction ratings. Previous studies highlighted that feedback is most effective when tailored to the individual. Summary of work: Students were assigned an ARS keypad at the start of one academic year and were regularly assessed on their understanding during physiology lectures by answering questions using the ARS. We provided students with instant feedback, generalised feedback (class responses and feedback on each question) and personalised feedback (individual results were imported into Blackboard). Students were asked to complete an online evaluation form including Likert-scale and free-text questions. Summary of results: Evaluation is underway and we will present the results of this study alongside staff perceptions of this method of feedback. Conclusions: Providing students with individualised formative feedback may highlight areas where they have difficulties, enabling them to guide their self directed study. Take-home messages: Use of an ARS to provide individualised feedback has potential to improve student satisfaction of feedback but also has drawbacks