Students, Professors Debate Clicker Use In Classroom

Remote controls aren't just for couch potatoes. UConn is one of the hundreds of universities putting TV-style clickers in the hands of college students in hopes to enhance learning and participation. But students and professors question the benefits of clickers in the classroom.

"Remotes are a great idea, but don't make us pay for them when you can hand us a piece of paper," said Robert Smedley, a 6th-semester sociology major. "It should be optional, not mandatory," he said.

Smedley uses a clicker in his Social Research Theory class. Professor John Cooley requires clickers in his Biology 102 class.

"We saw clickers as a way to give students a stake in their educations and to get them participating," he said.

"Nothing is a substitute for academic discussions, mentoring relationships and good old fashioned note taking, but it is extremely difficult to teach a large, non-majors introductory course in that manner," Cooley said. "Students can tune out, and the professor can just drone on and on."

At least 10 courses require clickers this semester, said Co-op manager William Simpson. Clickers are purchased from the Co-op for about $20 and depending on the manufacturer, students register the device online for an additional fee. The keypad is then used in class to take attendance, take quizzes and even play review games.

Simpson said there are multiple clicker programs that are not compatible with one another and often students will have to buy more than one remote for different classes. Also, textbook companies will bundle clickers with books, not allowing students to purchase clickers independently. Simpson said the administration is looking into solving these two problems.

Aside from additional costs, instructors reported other downsides to clicker technology.

"It's a lot of work to get the systems up and running, and to think up questions to ask with it," Cooley said.

He also said earlier clicker programs used infrared frequencies and did not work as well as the radio frequency clickers used currently.

"Yes, the system requires a lot of administrative effort," said Professor Adam Fry, who also teaches Biology 102. "During our first semester we learned that the system was not very reliable in some cases, although those bugs seem to have been remedied by the companies that make the clickers and are not a problem now," Fry said.

The Class Performance System (CPS) is one of the clicker programs used on campus. Developed by eInstruction Corporation in Denton, Texas, CPS is used allegedly in thousands of elementary schools and universities in 11 countries, according to the company web site, www.einstruction.com.

"We recommend, as a general guideline, that 8-12 appropriate objective questions be integrated into every one hour learning activity," according to the CPS web site.

Fry, who follows this guidance, heard about eInstruction through text book publishers and used it last spring for in-class assignments.

"In one lecture section it was great to see that 90 percent of the students understood what I had taught them and could correctly answer questions based on it," Fry said.

Also, clickers were "great for easily taking attendance, which is normally very hard to do in my lecture courses with 200-300 students," he said.

Attendance wasn't so easy for one instructor from Texas who posted to the eInstruction web site about students cheating with clickers. In some 400 person lecture halls, students deliberately missed class and had a friend sign in for them and earn participation points.

While Cooley and Fry did not report similar clicker abuse in their classes, Fry points to a greater problem with technology dependence.

"In my opinion, few things undermine the quality and mission of the university experience as much as posting lecture notes online," Fry said. "Many students want the easy way through the course and that is perfectly understandable, but we're not preparing them for any future challenges if we hand it all to them up front and online."