A Controlled Study of Clicker-Assisted Memory Enhancement in College Classrooms

Summary: Personal response systems, commonly called ‘clickers’, are widely used in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. Although many studies show they enhance learning, experimental ! ndings are mixed, and methodological issues limit their conclusions. Moreover, prior work has not determined whether clickers affect cognitive change or simply alert students to information likely to be on tests. The present investigation used a highly controlled methodology that removed subject and item differences from the data to explore the effect of clicker questions on memory for targeted facts in a live classroom and to gain a window on the cognitive processes affecting the outcome. We found that in-class clicker questions given in a university psychology class augmented performance on delayed exam questions by 10‐13%. Experimental results and a class survey indicate that it is unlikely that the observed effects can be attributed solely to attention grabbing. Rather, the data suggest the technology invokes the testing effect. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Personal response systems allow instructors to present multiple-choice questions in any classroom equipped with a digital projection system. Students are required to purchase a remote (commonly called a ‘clicker’) that allows them to ‘click in’ responses, which are recorded by a receiver. With the instructor’s remote, a few button clicks allow instant projection of class responses to provide immediate feedback to students and also upload students’ responses to a grade book. Clickers have been used for a variety of educational purposes including teaching case studies (Brickman, 2006; Herried, 2006), replicating published studies in class (Cleary, 2008), and electronic testing (Epstein et al., 2002). On the basis of published reports, however, the most common use appears to be during lectures for assessing students’ comprehension of class material in real time and improving participation and attendance (Beekes, 2006; Poirier & Feldman, 2007; Shih, Rogers, Hart, Phillis, & Lavoie, 2008). Although studies of clicker effectiveness have yielded mixed results (discussed later), the bulk of evidence indicates that the technology is effective for enhancing learning. Most prior studies, however, have only compared clicker classrooms with control classrooms not using clickers. Further, to our knowledge, no published work to date has directly explored the cognition underlying clicker effects. Here, we take a different approach and examine the effect of clicker questions on memory for speci! c bits of factual knowledge in clicker-assisted classrooms. The present experiment was designed to answer two questions. Speci! cally, does clicker use promote learning in the classroom? If so, do the observed improvements re" ect true cognitive change or are the enhancements simply a re" ection of greater emphasis placed on clicker-targeted information? To explain the motivation behind this work, the following section will brie" y review the literature on clicker-assisted learning and methodological concerns that may limit any conclusions that can be made. A discussion of cognitive mechanisms that may explain clicker effects will provide a foundation for the speci! c research questions addressed by the study.