Raise your card to show your grasp! Using Interactive Response System (IRS) in IT Course for Active Participation and Achievement

Author(s):

Ekmel Çetin(presenting / submitting)Ebru Solmaz

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures

Format:

Paper

Session Information

06 SES 10, Opening Up Schools and Bridging Gaps

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

K6.15

Chair:

Sandra Aßmann

Contribution

There are different ways to enhance students’ knowledge such as reviewing course after the lesson or stimulating recall of prior knowledge (Gagne, Briggs & Wager, 1992). Furthermore, teachers use formative assessment to adapt lessons and check student understanding about the subject matter (Davis, 2015). Quizzes are used frequently as formative assessment tools. However, students can be bored paper-based quizzes (Freeman & Tashner, 2015). On the other hand, students’ active participation is expected to be higher while implementing formative assessments.

Technological developments present innovative applications to instructors for course review, immediate feedback, recalling prior knowledge and formative assessments. Interactive Response Systems (IRS) are being used to provide interaction and immediate feedback for question-answer activities (Fies & Marshall, 2006). Students can give responses to the teacher with different ways (paper-based or mobile device) in IRSs. Therefore, teacher can collect responses and give feedback immediately and also report all of the data. There are different IRSs that are used by students on their own devices such as Kahoot or used only by teacher on her/his device such as Plickers. While Kahoot support “Bring your Own Device” (BYOD) policy that provides students to bring their mobile devices to class (Bradley, 2011), there is no need for students to use mobile devices in “Plickers” application. Teacher reflects questions to screen and students raise QR code cards to give response. Teacher scans the QR code cards to collect and assess the responses with his/her mobile device. Some of the advantages of Plickers are assessing promptly and accurately in instruction process and preventing wasting time in vain while giving feedback (www.plickers.com).

Studies about Plickers are largely confined because it is a newly emerging field of study. There are few studies which were accessed from indexes in the years of 2015 and 2016. de Thomas, López-Fernández, Llamas-Salguero, Martín-Lobo and Pradas (2016) used Plickers application in a high school context and examined knowledge, active participation and creativity correlation. There was positive correlation between both active participation and knowledge with creativity. Lai, Huang and Huang (2016) conducted an empirical study in an inquiry-based learning environment. Students in experiment group who used Plickers indicated more academic achievement and motivation than the control group who did not use any IRS application. Undergraduate students who used web-based synchronous assessment (Plickers) indicated better academic performance. Moreover, students preferred to use synchronous assessment tools because of quick response and immediate feedback (Freeman, 2015). Damick (2015) collected teacher views about innovative applications in Algebra course. Teacher who has implemented the sample instruction emphasized that Plickers can be used for stimulating recall of prior knowledge and question and answer activities. Instantaneous response check and immediate feedback are some of the advantages of Plickers and these features can help students to check their own learning process (Damick, 2015).

In current study, it is considered to use an IRS application to repeat the Information Technologies course content and enhance the retention of the theoretical knowledge. Information Technologies course takes part in the curriculum of the departments in Faculty of Education in Turkey. The course consists of basic computer use and office applications practices with some theoretical contents such as history of computing, computer hardware and software and internet concepts. Considering the limitations of BYOD (smartphone ownership, internet connection), Plickers application will be used in this study. It is aimed to see whether an IRS application effects the instruction process. Following hypotheses are addressed in this contribution;

IRS use has a positive effect on students’ academic achievement
IRS use has a positive effect on students’ active participation
IRS use has a positive effect on the retention of students’ knowledge

Method

A quasi-experimental study will be conducted with 2 groups. Quasi-experimental design is preferred in educational studies when there is no opportunity to assign samples randomly (Creswell, 2012). Independent variable of the study is interactive response system and dependent variables are academic achievement, retention and active participation. The study will be conducted in Information Technologies in Education lesson with one experiment and one control groups. Course review and stimulating recall of prior knowledge will be conducted with paper based activities in control group, while these will be conducted via IRS application (Plickers) in the experiment group. Pretest-posttest control group design will be used for achievement and retention variables, posttest control group design will be used for active participation variable. The participants will be Gazi University Faculty of Education 1st grade undergraduate students who will take the Information Technology in Education lesson in 2016-2017 Spring Semester. Firstly, pretests for academic achievement will be conducted before the course. After 6 weeks practice, posttests for academic achievement and active participation will be conducted both to experiment and control groups. Retention test will be conducted 4 weeks later after the practice ends for the retention of students’ knowledge. Academic achievement and retention tests will be prepared by researchers. Active participation scale (Eryılmaz, 2014) will be used as the other data collection tool. t-test and ANOVA analysis will be used to determine the differences between experiment and control groups.

Expected Outcomes

Academic studies mention about possible positive effects of IRS use in lessons such as increasing academic achievement, motivation and active participation. Moreover, these studies recommend IRS use in lessons for stimulating recall of prior knowledge, question-answer activities and immediate feedback. The current study will examine the effect of an IRS application, Plickers use to achievement, active participation and retention of knowledge of students. It is expected that Plickers use will has a positive effect on students’ active participation, achievement and their retention of knowledge with its interaction and immediate feedback features. In addition to this, there are very few empirical studies about IRS use in education and there is not enough studies with undergraduate students. Whatever the results indicate, this study will contribute to the literature about IRS use in lessons notably.

References

Bradley, T. (2011). Pros and cons of bringing your own device to work. PC World. Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/246760/pros_and_cons_of_byod_bring_your_own_device_.html Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative (Fourth Edition). New Jersey: Upper Saddle River. Damick, J. M. (2015). Implementing Technology in an Algebra Classroom. Education and Human Development Master's Theses, Paper 622. Davis, M. R. (2015). Tech-Powered Teacher Tools. Education Week, 35(12), S20. Eryılmaz, A. (2014). Üniversite Öğrencileri İçin Derse Katılım Ölçeklerinin Geliştirilmesi. Uşak Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 7/2. Fies, C. & Marshall J. (2006). Classroom response systems: A review of the literature. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 15(1): 101-109. Freeman, C. L., & Tashner, J. (2015). Technologies for Formative Assessment: Can Web Based Applications Transform the Allied Health Science Classroom and Improve Summative Assessment Outcomes. Retrieved from http://www.candicelfreeman.com/uploads/3/7/9/2/37925553/ technologiesforformativeassessment.pdf Gagné, R. M., Briggs, L. J., & Wager, W. W. (1992). Principles of instructional design (4th ed.). Forth Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers. Lai, C. H., Huang, S. H., & Huang, Y. M. (2016). Evaluation of Inquiry-based Learning with IRS in the Technique Course: A Pilot Study in Taiwan Industrial High School. 44th SEFI Conference Proceedings, 12-15 September 2016, Tampere, Finland. Retrieved from http://www.sefi.be/conference-2016/papers/Engineering_Education_Research__I_feel_brilliant/lai-evaluation-of-inquiry-based-learning-with-irs-in-the-technique-course-86.pdf Plickers. www.plickers.com de Thomas, J. R., López-Fernández, V., Llamas-Salguero, F., Martín-Lobo, P., & Pradas, S. (2016). Participation and knowledge through Plickers in high school students and its relationship to creativity. UNESCO-UNIR ICT & Education Latam Congress 2016 Proceedings, 113-123. Retrieved from http://research.unir.net/unesco-congreso/wp-content/uploads/sites/76/2016/06/u2016-REYNAJaraby.pdf

Author Information

Ekmel Çetin (presenting / submitting)

Kastamonu University

Computer Education and Instructional Technologies

Kastamonu

Ebru Solmaz

Gazi University

Ankara

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