Closing the feedback loop for clicker questions

Abstract

We describe the output from a recently-funded JISC Learning and Teaching Innovation Grant: Electronic Voting Analysis and Feedback for all (EVAF4All). We have created a web-based software tool (EVAF) that allows electronic voting system data captured at the point of delivery in lectures, to be fed back to students, thus providing valuable formative feedback of their progress over what can be a large number of such questions. In institutions where 'loanership' models of handset distribution are used (typically, when students keep the same handset for a whole course or year) this is particularly powerful as it can supply students with their own data as well as the aggregate data from the rest of the cohort. Academic staff can use the tool to evaluate the effectiveness of their clicker questions as an aide to course monitoring or development processes. We briefly cover the technical aspects of the system we have built and also present a case study of its use in an introductory Physics course taught at the University of Edinburgh.