A study on the adoption of clickers in higher education

Abstract

Audience response systems or 'clickers' are being used widely in both large and small educational settings. Clickers leverage upon a number of technological affordances to allow for adaptive and flexible learning to be accomplished. To promote active learning in its classrooms, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore rolled out a campus-wide initiative called "Learning that Clicks!" on using the interactive technology of clickers. This initiative will enable the necessary transformation of pedagogy and learning design to support the epistemological paradigm shift of becoming more student-centric in nature. This preliminary study attempted to investigate the experiences of undergraduate students in learning in clicker-supported instructional environments. A survey consisting of nine items was administered to 640 students from 12 classes in the Engineering, Humanities and Sciences schools to solicit their views on the effectiveness of clicker technology as an instructional device. Generally, students felt that the use of clickers has improved the quality of their learning experiences. Overall, this study reveals that clicker technology offers great promise in promoting more collaborative and engaging learning environments and innovating instructional delivery, provided lecturers apply sound pedagogical principles in their teaching.