Impact of Instant Feedback on Student Performance in a 300-level Class

Abstract Using iClickers in lectures allows students to obtain instant feedback on their performance when solving an example problem in a low-stake environment. It also helps instructors to identify common mistakes that need to be corrected before higher-stake assessments. Here, iClickers were used in a 300 level introductory power circuits and electromechanics course at the University of Illinois to try to improve overall class performance and aid in material retention for later electrical power courses. The course material and types of graded assessments were not changed from previous semesters when iClickers were not used. Extra credit was offered to students who attended lectures as an incentive to participate in iClicker questions. iClickers were used in lectures where the theory needed to solve an example problem was first introduced and then the students were asked to solve a problem based on the given material. The time given to solve each problem varied based on the problem difficulty, and the answer choices provided included values obtained from computations that included common mistakes. After the student responses had been recorded, the example problem was solved in full so that students could confirm that they were approaching the problem correctly or could see where they made their mistake. The impact of using iClickers was measured based on student average performance on quizzes, midterm and final exams, and the final course grade before extra credit assignment. These results were compared to the average performance on the same assessments from all previous semesters that the author taught where iClickers were not used. The assessment averages for the semester that used iClickers were larger than in the semesters where iClickers were not used. The significance for this rise in assessment averages was obtained using a one-tailed t-test with a significance level of 5%. The results from the hypothesis testing suggest that using iClickers in the method given did not significantly improve student performance in the class. This also suggests that changes to using iClickers will need to be made in subsequent semesters to improve student performance.