Project Report: To What Extent Do Personal Response Systems Benefit Learning and Teaching Within a Higher Education Environment?

Abstract

Personal Response systems (PRS) sometimes referred to as audience response systems (ARS) or Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) are being increasingly adopted by educational establishments. It is thought that the idea was first made into prototype units in the United States of America during the 1960s (Banks, 2006), but it has taken many years for the PRS to be manufactured and constructed into a more user friendly system. PRS allow students to interact and respond via handheld keypads that use either radio frequency or infa-red technology to communicate with a computer that can immediately analyse the data. Tutors can instantly collect responses to questions of varying levels of difficulty or complexity. The answers can then be immediately displayed on the computer projection screen at the front of the class for the benefit of both student and tutor in order to monitor and/or record progress. The university has recently purchased a small number of PRS kits and is looking to purchase more in the near future. Each kit (manufactured by Turning Point) is in the form of a mobile carry case, which consists of a number of remote handsets (often referred to as clickers), a USB receiver that attaches to the computer and the appropriate software, which effectively is a “plug in” to the standard Microsoft PowerPoint package (in most instances). These systems have been chosen as they are highly portable and advertised as being easy to use and maintain. The systems have the option of anonymous data collection or can be set up so that student handsets can be recorded against individual students for summative exams and assignments.