Conserving time in the classroom: The clicker technique

Abstract

Any technique that conserves classroom instructional time without sacrificing the amount learned is of great educational value. This research compared a laboratory analogue of the clicker technique to analogues of other classroom pedagogical methods that all involve repeated testing during teaching. The clicker analogue mimics the classroom practice of dropping material that is understood by the majority of the class, as revealed by testing with clicker questions, from further lecture. A fact learning and retrieval paradigm was used, in which college students learned facts about unfamiliar countries. Compressing instruction time based on group-level performance produced as much learning as no compression and as compression based on individual-level performance. Results suggest that the clicker technique is an efficient and cost-effective method of conserving instructional time without loss of amount learned.

Keywords:

• Clicker technique
• Fact learning
• Classroom learning
• Instructional time

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Army Research Office Grant W911NF-05–1–0153. We are grateful to Mike Overstreet for help testing participants and to Douglas Duncan and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments concerning this research.