From The Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Wired Campus / January 7, 2009
Learning With 'Clickers' Gets Better After Peer Discussions
College students who use wireless handheld devices called "clickers" to register answers to instructors' questions during lectures are more likely to give correct responses after discussion with their peers, studies have found. But, researchers wondered, were students improving merely because they copied the answers of fellow students? Or had they actually gained a greater understanding of the material?
The findings of a new study published in the latest issue of Science suggest that improvement after peer discussion reflects real learning.
ABSTRACT
Why Peer Discussion Improves Student Performance on In-Class Concept Questions /
M. K. Smith,1* W. B. Wood,1 W. K. Adams,2 C. Wieman,2,3 J. K. Knight,1 N. Guild,1 T. T. Su1
When students answer an in-class conceptual question individually using clickers, discuss it with their neighbors, and then revote on the same question, the percentage of correct answers typically increases. This outcome could result from gains in understanding during discussion, or simply from peer influence of knowledgeable students on their neighbors. To distinguish between these alternatives in an undergraduate genetics course, we followed the above exercise with a second, similar (isomorphic) question on the same concept that students answered individually. Our results indicate that peer discussion enhances understanding, even when none of the students in a discussion group originally knows the correct answer.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5910/122
And, surprisingly, students "don't even need somebody who knows the right answer" in their discussion group in order to do better, says Michelle K. Smith, a research associate in biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder who led the study.
[snip].
Although the same peer-discussion method evaluated in the study could be put in place without clickers, students enjoy using the device as long as they're given challenging questions, Ms. Smith says.
The device is used in college classrooms across the country, especially in large lecture courses in the hard sciences and mathematics, says Jane E. Caldwell, a biology instructor at West Virginia University who has published a paper in CBELife Sciences Education reviewing research on clickers
ABSTRACT
Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips / Jane E. Caldwell
Audience response systems (ARS) or clickers, as they are commonly called, offer a management tool for engaging students in the large classroom. Basic elements of the technology are discussed. These systems have been used in a variety of fields and at all levels of education. Typical goals of ARS questions are discussed, as well as methods of compensating for the reduction in lecture time that typically results from their use. Examples of ARS use occur throughout the literature and often detail positive attitudes from both students and instructors, although exceptions do exist. When used in classes, ARS clickers typically have either a benign or positive effect on student performance on exams, depending on the method and extent of their use, and create a more positive and active atmosphere in the large classroom. These systems are especially valuable as a means of introducing and monitoring peer learning methods in the large lecture classroom. So that the reader may use clickers effectively in his or her own classroom, a set of guidelines for writing good questions and a list of best-practice tips have been culled from the literature and experienced users.
http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/abstract/6/1/9
She says the new paper in Science "made a great stride in pinning down the cause of improvement in performance," showing it was not just the result of "persuasion by bright students that happened to be sitting nearby."Ruth Hammond
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3540/peer-discussion-improves-learning-with-clickers