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Effectively Using Classroom Response Systems for Improving Student Content Retention

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Computers Supported Education (CSEDU 2017)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 865))

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Abstract

Classroom response systems are widely recognized as an effective tool for providing formative feedback and engaging students, but our research supports the hypothesis that these systems also provide opportunities for improving content retention. This is evidenced by an experiment we conducted on two distinct sections of an introductory course in computer science, wherein large collections of classroom response system questions were presented to different sections at different stages. Questions that were offered immediately after the corresponding material had the express purpose of providing an opportunity for formative feedback, while questions that were presented later were expected to improve content retention. The performance of participants on the corresponding questions of the final examination was then reviewed, and statistical analyses indicate that participants performed better on those questions that corresponded to the classroom response system questions provided for content retention.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel by Dr., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Robert Collier

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Jalal Kawash

Authors
  1. Robert Collier
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  2. Jalal Kawash
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Collier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Paula Escudeiro

  2. University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy

    Gennaro Costagliola

  3. University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

    Susan Zvacek

  4. School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, United Kingdom

    James Uhomoibhi

  5. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Bruce M. McLaren

Appendix: Questions Used in the Study

Appendix: Questions Used in the Study

This appendix contains each of the final exam questions (i.e., the stem and alternatives, where applicable) associated with this investigation (i.e., multiple choice questions designated MCQ1, MCQ2, MCQ3, and MCQ4) and the corresponding classroom response system questions. As previously noted, participants would have 150 min to submit a response and then the results would be analyzed, the alternatives would each be discussed, and the solution would be presented.

MCQ1

Multiple Choice Question 1 [MCQ1] from the Final Exam. The EMPLOYEE table has the following columns: EmployeeID, FirstName, LastName, Job, and Salary. Which of the following WHERE clauses would be used to retrieve data for all the salespersons that have a salary less than 35000 and everyone who is not a salesperson and whose salary is above 35000? (n.b., the data should all appear in the same table.)

  1. (a)

    WHERE (Job = ‘Sales’ OR Salary < 35000)

               AND (Job != ‘Sales’ OR Salary > 35000)

  2. (b)

    WHERE (Job = ‘Sales’ OR Salary < 35000)

               OR (Job != ‘Sales’ OR Salary > 35000)

  3. (c)

    WHERE (Job = ‘Sales’ AND Salary < 35000)

               AND (Job != ‘Sales’ OR Salary > 35000)

  4. (d)

    WHERE (Job = ‘Sales’ AND Salary < 35000)

               OR (Job != ‘Sales’ OR Salary > 35000)

The Corresponding Classroom Response System Question. What Where clause should you use if you want to retrieve all the male employees from the marketing department with all the female employees from the research department?

  1. (a)

    WHERE (GENDER = ‘Male’ AND DEPT = ‘Marketing’)

               AND (GENDER = ‘Female’ AND DEPT = ‘Research’)

  2. (b)

    WHERE (GENDER = ‘Male’ AND DEPT = ‘Marketing’)

               OR (GENDER = ‘Female’ AND DEPT = ‘Research’)

  3. (c)

    WHERE (GENDER = ‘Male’ OR DEPT = ‘Marketing’)

               AND (GENDER = ‘Female’ OR DEPT = ‘Research’)

  4. (d)

    WHERE (GENDER = ‘Male’ OR DEPT = ‘Marketing’)

               OR (GENDER = ‘Female’ OR DEPT = ‘Research’)

MCQ2

Multiple Choice Question 2 [MCQ2] from the Final Exam. If table EMPLOYEE has 250 rows of data and table DEPARTMENT has 10 rows of data, how much data (i.e., how many rows) is retrieved by: SELECT * FROM EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT?

  1. (a)

    10

  2. (b)

    250

  3. (c)

    260

  4. (d)

    2500

The Corresponding Classroom Response System Question. If the DEPARTMENT table has 5 rows and the EMPLOYEE table has 100 rows, how many rows does the following query return: SELECT * FROM DEPARTMENT, EMPLOYEE?

  1. (a)

    5

  2. (b)

    20

  3. (c)

    500

  4. (d)

    2000

MCQ3

Multiple Choice Question 3 [MCQ3] from the Final Exam. Which of the following benefits does UDP offer relative to TCP?

  1. (a)

    UDP consumes fewer computer resources by not managing connections.

  2. (b)

    UDP guarantees that packets of a transmission arrive in the same order they were sent.

  3. (c)

    UDP does not divide a message into packets.

  4. (d)

    UDP guarantees that all packets successfully arrive at the destination.

The Corresponding Classroom Response System Question. Which of the following statements is true?

  1. (a)

    UDP is a connection-oriented protocol.

  2. (b)

    TCP is analogous to the postal system.

  3. (c)

    TCP and UDP are based on packet-switching.

  4. (d)

    None of the above.

MCQ4

Multiple Choice Question 4 [MCQ4] from the Final Exam. Suppose that you have opened the webpage at “my.ucalgary.ca". Which of the following statements is true?

  1. (a)

    POST is generated when you click the “Sign In” button.

  2. (b)

    GET is generated when you lick the “Disclaimer” hyperlink.

  3. (c)

    GET is generated when you click the “About CAS” hyperlink.

  4. (d)

    All of the above.

The Corresponding Classroom Response System Question. Under the Hypertext transfer protocol...

  1. (a)

    POST is generated when clicking a hyperlink.

  2. (b)

    GET is generated when clicking a hyperlink.

  3. (c)

    GET is generated when you press the button to login to D2L.

  4. (d)

    POST is generated when a URL is entered in the browser’s address field.

SAQ1

Short Answer Question 1 [SAQ1] from the Final Exam. Give an example of a graph that has five (5) vertices and the minimum number of colours to legally colour it is also five (5). To clarify, if the minimum number of colours to legally colour the graph is five, then you cannot legally colour it with four or fewer colours. Recall that a legal colouring requires that no two adjacent vertices have the same colour.

The Corresponding Classroom Response System Question. What is the minimum number of colours necessary for colouring the following graph such that no two adjacent vertices have the same colour?

figure a
  1. (a)

    1

  2. (b)

    3

  3. (c)

    4

  4. (d)

    5

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Collier, R., Kawash, J. (2018). Effectively Using Classroom Response Systems for Improving Student Content Retention. In: Escudeiro, P., Costagliola, G., Zvacek, S., Uhomoibhi, J., McLaren, B. (eds) Computers Supported Education. CSEDU 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 865. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94640-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94640-5_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94639-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94640-5

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