Using Wireless Response Pads as a Vehicle for Formative Assessment"

In higher education the lecture is arguably the most common method of presenting information. The professional literature has begun to advocate alternatives or modifications to the lecture promoting more active learning through the use of teaching techniques such as the interactive lecture and the pause procedure. During the course of a 50-minute lecture, if educators simply pause for two minutes to engage students actively or to conduct formative assessment strategies such as mini-quizzes, attention, motivation, and student learning might be impacted positively. Assessment on college campuses today has witnessed a shift in technological advancement in recent years. The implementation of wireless response pads, also known as “clickers”, could revolutionize assessment by providing immediate formative feedback to learners, increasing student interactivity, and aiding in the campaign to promote active learning on college campuses across the nation.

The study observed the effect of continuous formative feedback via the use of wireless response pads (clickers) in the nutrition sciences classroom and its impact on end-of-unit test performance. The nutrition sciences program in the Health, Human Performance, and Nutrition Department at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington has employed the use of the clickers over the past four years in its introductory nutrition courses. A quasi-experimental, causal-comparative research design was used to analyze data differentiating between students enrolled in clicker and non-clicker classes and its impact on student learning. Results on end-of-unit examinations from two separate academic years were analyzed and compared utilizing a T-test design. In addition, the Pearson product moment coefficient of correlation was conducted between student clicker performance and test performance to determine if a positive correlation existed.

Results yielded significant differences in mean scores between those exposed to the clicker instruction (M = 81.89%) and non-clicker instruction (M = 75.81%) was (p = .000). Regarding gender, females yielded higher mean scores than their male counterparts. The significance of the differences in mean scores between the females (M = 83.27%) and males (M = 78.88%) among the clicker population was (p = .002). With regard to the correlation between clicker performance and test performance, the Pearson Product Moment Coefficient of Correlation yielded a low, yet positive correlation of (r = .271), ( p = .000) indicating a relationship between the level of performance as measured through clicker points and results on the final exam.