Improving Student Content Retention using a Classroom Response System

Robert Collier, Jalal Kawash

2017

Abstract

The most typical uses of a classroom response system are to improve student engagement and to provide opportunities for immediate feedback. For our introductory course in computer science we sought to investigate whether the content and format typically associated with a classroom response system could be adapted from a feedback tool into an approach for improving content retention. We devised an experiment wherein different sections would be presented with complementary sets of questions presented either immediately after the corresponding material (i.e., for feedback) or at the beginning of the following lecture, with the express purpose of reminding and reinforcing material (i.e., to improve content retention). In every case, the participants that encountered an item in the following lecture exhibited relatively better performance on the corresponding items of the final exam. Thus our evidence supports the hypothesis that, with no significant additional investment of preparation or lecture time (beyond that associated with all classroom response systems), questions can be presented in such a way as to engage students while simultaneously improving content retention.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Collier R. and Kawash J. (2017). Improving Student Content Retention using a Classroom Response System . In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-239-4, pages 17-24. DOI: 10.5220/0006218100170024

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu17,
author={Robert Collier and Jalal Kawash},
title={Improving Student Content Retention using a Classroom Response System},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,},
year={2017},
pages={17-24},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006218100170024},
isbn={978-989-758-239-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,
TI - Improving Student Content Retention using a Classroom Response System
SN - 978-989-758-239-4
AU - Collier R.
AU - Kawash J.
PY - 2017
SP - 17
EP - 24
DO - 10.5220/0006218100170024