FACTORS THAT DISCOURAGE PERSISTENT USE OF STUDENT PERSONAL RESPONSE DEVICES BY EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE FACULTY

The pedagogical value of peer instruction and real-time feedback on teaching, made more practical by student personal response devices (clickers) and ConcepTests, has been demonstrated in various educational settings. Recent work indicates that use of clickers has continually increased over the past decade, and that undergraduate students have become more acclimated to and accepting of their use. Such studies have generally focused on student attitudes toward clickers rather than on faculty attitudes and behaviors.

Our university, with the largest student population of any in the United States, officially embraced and institutionalized clicker use about five years ago, by selecting a specific brand to be sold in bookstores, outfitting classrooms for that technology, and providing dedicated instructional technology training and round-the-clock support for that brand for students and faculty. This led to greater interest and use by our Earth and space science (ESS) faculty. However, a survey conducted in the spring indicates that about half of the ESS faculty who used clickers regularly in teaching have now abandoned their use, particularly in large-lecture courses for which the technology was especially intended. Most of the ESS faculty who abandoned clickers have not pursued alternative means of administering ConcepTests or similar assessments in real time though aware of the value of such formative assessment.

Follow-up surveys and interviews were conducted with Earth and space science faculty to characterize their reasons for discontinuing clicker use. Emergent coding revealed two broad categories: technological difficulties and student impediments. Only 30% of ESS faculty surveyed indicated a willingness to reconsider clicker use in the future if these issues can be resolved. These preliminary findings suggest further faculty-centered studies of clicker use.