Assessment Case Study Idea
Note: The following is a shortened version of a post on the electric educator blog that I maintain.
This year I have been using a student response system (SRS) to give quizzes to my students each Friday. The SRS set that I have is made by einstruction. I have been fairly pleased with the performance of the system. The hardware works great. The software is a bit quirky.
The initial response of my students to this system was extremely enthusiastic. They loved it! It brought new life to quiz taking. I used the system all during first semester and have continued this semester. The enthusiasm for the clicker quizzes has cooled considerably, however.
After several students requested to take paper versions of the quiz instead of using the clickers, I began offering this option to all of my students. Those who preferred paper quizzes said that they didn't like the time limit for each question and had trouble focusing in the noise of the classroom. Because of this request, I now begin by asking if anyone would prefer to take a paper version (the questions are all the same) of the quiz instead of using the clickers.
This week, about half of my students decided to take the paper version of the quiz instead of using the clickers. What shocked me was that approximately 95% of the students that chose the paper version were girls! I was amazed to see that nearly all of the guys in my class wanted to take the clicker quiz and nearly all the girls preferred the paper quiz!
During my next quiz I will ask all of my students to take both the clicker quiz and the paper quiz (I will disable the option of showing the correct answer at the end of each question when using the clickers). As I analyze the data I will be looking for a relationship between the quiz delivery method and student performance.
I'm interested in hearing if anyone has made similar observations when using a SRS system or if you have any suggestions on my case study. Feel free to comment here or on my blog.
This year I have been using a student response system (SRS) to give quizzes to my students each Friday. The SRS set that I have is made by einstruction. I have been fairly pleased with the performance of the system. The hardware works great. The software is a bit quirky.
The initial response of my students to this system was extremely enthusiastic. They loved it! It brought new life to quiz taking. I used the system all during first semester and have continued this semester. The enthusiasm for the clicker quizzes has cooled considerably, however.
After several students requested to take paper versions of the quiz instead of using the clickers, I began offering this option to all of my students. Those who preferred paper quizzes said that they didn't like the time limit for each question and had trouble focusing in the noise of the classroom. Because of this request, I now begin by asking if anyone would prefer to take a paper version (the questions are all the same) of the quiz instead of using the clickers.
This week, about half of my students decided to take the paper version of the quiz instead of using the clickers. What shocked me was that approximately 95% of the students that chose the paper version were girls! I was amazed to see that nearly all of the guys in my class wanted to take the clicker quiz and nearly all the girls preferred the paper quiz!
During my next quiz I will ask all of my students to take both the clicker quiz and the paper quiz (I will disable the option of showing the correct answer at the end of each question when using the clickers). As I analyze the data I will be looking for a relationship between the quiz delivery method and student performance.
I'm interested in hearing if anyone has made similar observations when using a SRS system or if you have any suggestions on my case study. Feel free to comment here or on my blog.
Tags: assessment, case, clicker, jrsowash, quizzes, response, student, study, system
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Fred Ravan on
-
This is interesting. I would be interested in the academic level of these students. I find that I have to do more persuading with academically gifted students.
-
Permalink Reply by John Sowash on
-
I teach at a private school with a selective admission policy. Most of my students would fall into the academically gifted category.
-
Permalink Reply by Z. Stewart MacLean on
-
Very interesting find. Makes sense as Wade Welch explained. While that is a generalization it is still very true that males are more visually oriented.
We have a clicker system where I work and I've been thinking about utilizing it for practice tests. I'm curious, as to your results... my initial thought would be they should be the written tests should score higher, due to the time limit placed on the click exams. But then again, some people perform better under pressure.
-
-
I will post the results on my blog. I would like to perform several trials to get the best data, so it may be a while!
-
-
Wow! What a small world. I just noticed on your blog that you teach in Southfield, I teach down at a charter school in Detroit.
Report
Win at School
Commercial Policy
If you are representing a commercial entity, please see the specific guidelines on your participation.
Badge
Follow
Awards:
© 2024 Created by Steve Hargadon.
Powered by
