The recent trend of clicker questions in lecture halls has caught on to the point where they are now used in just about every general education course. While the most conventional form at UF is through H-ITT clickers, professors will also use websites such as Learning Catalytics and Top Hat to allow students to answer questions posed in class.
According to Lee Dye, a former science writer for the Los Angeles Times, clicker questions are used because they allow “teachers to pose questions and get immediate feedback from the entire class, and none of the students need to worry about exposing their ignorance.” However, anyone who has ever used a clicker knows this is not the case.
Instead of clicker questions being a true representation of what students know, results to clicker questions just show the ability of students to find the right answer. As soon as time begins to answer a question, it becomes a mad scramble for students to seek out the minority who actually may know what they are doing. A consensus is then met in that one- to two-minute interval, resulting in a display screen showing the majority of the class answering correctly. This yields a false notion that, because the majority of the students got the clicker question right, that must mean the majority of students understand the course material.
The skewed mentality on clicker questions arises because clickers aren’t being used for their intended purpose. Many professors include clicker questions as 5 to 10 percent of students’ final grades, hindering professors from getting a clear view of what students know. At Montana State University, two researchers studied the correlation between the effectiveness of clicker questions gauging student understanding and including clicker questions as a part of final grades. After directly comparing classrooms where clicker questions counted as a grade and classrooms where they did not, the two researchers stated “many instructors use clicker questions to stimulate classroom discussion and to spark interest in their students, but we conclude from our analysis of the conversations that the use of a high stakes rubric for grading responses will not lead to an increase of frank discussion among the students.”
Another problem is that clicker questions are the sole reason students go to lectures. Arguing whether clicker questions should be used brings up another argument — namely, whether it is more important students attend class or understand course material. The reality is, some learn better on their own. Clicker questions force students to attend class lest they lose points, treating college students like high school students. However, there is a big difference between high school and college: College is expensive. Professors do students no favors believing clicker questions directly lead to students coming to class, which indirectly leads to students attaining the material and therefore passing. This is a market-driven society. Although some students may walk the line of whether they genuinely want to understand certain material, almost all are rather certain they are not going to waste money spent on education by failing classes. College students are given the responsibility to feed themselves and get out of bed in the morning. They should also be granted the ability to decide whether they want to miss a day or two and not be punished by measly clicker points because they made their own decisions as adults.
Audience participation programs shouldn’t be eradicated from the lecture hall setting; they should simply be used for their intended purpose. Clicker questions are meant to be used for professors to receive feedback on what students don’t understand, but professors can’t get a clear gauge of student understanding when clicker points are a factor in grading. Professors want to help students understand, but they can’t if they don’t know with what material students are confused. If professors were able to get a clearer representation of what students don’t understand through ungraded clicker questions, they could then help students more constructively in lecture halls. Maybe then students will attend class because they want to, not because they have to.
Joshua Udvardy is a UF chemical engineering freshman. His column appears on Wednesdays.
