With the advent of wireless technology, new tools are available that are intended to enhance students' learning and attitudes. To assess the effectiveness of wireless student response systems in the biology curriculum at New Mexico State University, a combined study of student attitudes and performance was undertaken. A survey of students in six biology courses showed that strong majorities of students had favorable overall impressions of the use of student response systems and also thought that the technology improved their interest in the course, attendance, and understanding of course content. Students in lower-division courses had more strongly positive overall impressions than did students in upper-division courses. To assess the effects of the response systems on student learning, the number of in-class questions was varied within each course throughout the semester. Students' performance was compared on exam questions derived from lectures with low, medium, or high numbers of in-class questions. Increased use of the response systems in lecture had a positive influence on students' performance on exam questions across all six biology courses. Students not only have favorable opinions about the use of student response systems, increased use of these systems increases student learning.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854854PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1187/cbe.06-09-0190DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

response systems
24
student response
16
student learning
12
biology courses
12
student
8
systems student
8
learning attitudes
8
students favorable
8
in-class questions
8
students' performance
8

Similar Publications

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!