Clickers are small, handheld units that are intended to increase student participation and engagement in class by allowing students to easily respond to an instructor's multiple-choice questions; these responses are instantly tabulated by software so that the instructor, and potentially the students, can see the results. Used effectively, clickers can foster student engagement with course content.

Clickers were invented in the late 1980s, but they did not begin to become widespread until the late 1990s, when large screen projectors became more common in university classrooms. Many people were first introduced to clickers on the popular televison show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," in which a contestant had the opportunity to poll the audience, who keyed in their response using a clicker-like device. Clickers are also known as Personal Response Systems (PRS), Audience Response Systems (ARS), and Classroom Response Systems (CRS). In the U.K. they are sometimes called "zappers."

General Functionality

The "traditional" clicker system is made up of the individual handheld clickers (which the students operate), a wireless receiver (which collects the responses from the students), and software (which aggregates and creates bar charts of the student responses). More recently, clicker functionality has been achieved via programs or apps that students install on their smart phones or other mobile devices.

Typically, an instructor displays a multiple choice question on a screen and gives the students a few minutes to think about it; students then indicate their answer by means of their clickers. The students answers are instantly aggregated and a bar graph of the results is displayed to the instructor (and to the students, if the instructor so desires).

Clickers can be associated with specific students, so that responses to the multiple-choice questions can be associated with the owner of the clicker. However, clickers can also be used anonymously; that is, there is no association between specific clickers and specific students.

Although it’s best not to use clickers for high-stakes assessment, responses to the multiple-choice questions can typically be uploaded into the gradebook of a learning management system.

Evidence of Efficacy

Increased student engagement:

Kaleta (2007) reports that "Faculty agreed or strongly agreed that there was greater student engagement (94%), participation (87%), and interaction (68%) in class as a result of clicker use. … The majority of students also agreed or strongly agreed that the use of clickers made them feel more engaged (69%) in class, increased participation (70%), and helped them pay attention (67%).

Improved class attendance:

Caldwell (2007) reports that “when clicker scores accounted for 15% or more of the course grade, attendance rose to 80-90%.”

Diminished attrition:

Caldwell (2007) reports that clickers reduced end-of-term attrition from 8-12% to about 4%.

Improved learning outcomes:

Caldwell (2007) reports that "Most reviews agree that ‘ample converging evidence’ suggests that clickers generally cause improved student outcomes such as improved exam scores or passing rates, student comprehension, and learning and that students like clickers."

Kaleta (2007) reports that “The statistical analyses of grade data collected for the 11 parallel courses between fall 2004 and fall 2005 showed a statistically significant impact of clicker use on student performance.... There was an increase of 2.23% in the number of students obtaining a grade of C or better in the courses that used clickers.”

Fies (2006) reports that “There is great agreement that CRSs [clickers] promote learning when coupled with appropriate pedagogical methodologies.... The literature also indicates that CRS-supported environment lead to greater learning gains than traditional learning environments.”

Anecdotal evidence:

At the University of Wateloo, more than 5000 thousand students use clickers every term. To my knowledge, no instructor who has tried using clickers has ever stopped using them.

Instructional Challenges

Clickers can address the following Instructional Challenges in these ways:

1. I don’t have a sense of whether my students are keeping up or understanding the material.
   In a traditional classroom, when you ask students whether they have understood a concept, most of them will not respond; those who do respond will often say they have understood a concept when in fact they have not. Using clickers to get the students to respond to a handful of multiple-choice questions can quickly tell an instructor whether the students have a good grasp of the material.
   
   

2. Professor Carl Wieman provides an example of how simply telling students information has little impact on their learning. Most students, he says, mistakenly believe that the sound from a violin comes from its strings. He tells them otherwise in a lecture: “Explaining about sound and how a violin works, I show class a violin [Figure 2] and tell them that the strings cannot move enough air to produce much sound, so actually the sound comes from the wood in the back I point inside violin to show how there is a sound post so strings can move the bridge and the sound post causes back of violin to move and make sound. However, when he asks the students, fifteen minutes later, what part of the violin produces the sound, only 10% answer correctly. The lecture had little impact on them. However, when the students are asked the same question after engagaing in peer-instruction (facilitated by clickers) most of the students respond correctly.

   My students don’t seem engaged during class.
   Effective use of clickers can make a class more interactive, which in turn result in increased engagement with the material. Typically, an instructor will pose a clicker question on a PowerPoint slide and then gives students a minute or two to respond to it with their individual clickers. The instructor will then show the students the bar chart of their responses (ideally, their responses should be spread fairly evenly across the various possible answers). The instructor will then ask students to discuss their responses with a classmate or two, with each student aiming to convince his peers of the correctness of his or her answer. The instructor then poses the same question to the students and has them respond again with their individual clickers. When the new results are displayed, it’s typical that more students chose the correct answer. The process has engaged the students with the content (and with each other, as learners), and has also prompted them to briefly assume the role of teacher (and there is no better way to learn something, than to have to teach it to someone else). Repeat this process four to seven times each class, interspersing it with lecture and/or class discussion.
   
   
3. My students come to class unprepared (for example, without having finished assigned readings).
   At the beginning of each class, have your students use their clickers to answer a brief quiz (five or so questions) based on the content of the previously assigned readings. You might make two of the questions pertain to specific facts in the reading, while three other questions pertain to its overall ideas or themes. For the whole course, these should amount to no more than about 10% of the final grade. In other words, each quiz should be worth only a quarter or half a percent, so that if a diligent student does poorly on one of them (due to a legitimate reason such as illness), it won't significantly impact his or her final grade. The advantage to using clickers to conduct these kinds of quizzes (rather than a paper-based quiz) is that the software automatically grades the responses and uploads those grades into your gradebook in the learning management system. Incidentally, an alternative to using clickers for these kinds of quizzes is to use the quizzing tool that's built into your course LMS.
   

Click here to learn more about Instructional Challenges.

Best Practices

1. This 10-minute video describes approaches to using clickers effectively in the classroom. Click it once to watch it; after it starts, you can click it twice to watch it in full screen mode, if you prefer.

   Explain to your students why you are having them use clickers. Some students will have already used clickers in other classes, but some won't. You need to persuade them of the benefits of clickers (specifically, their increased engagement, and your heightened ability as the instructor to assess where they are at in terms of understanding a unit of material), in order to get them on side. They, after all, are the ones paying for the clickers, so they need to know what benefit they will derive from them.
   
   
2. Develop effective clicker questions. This in turn means that you need to know why you are using the clickers. For example, when you are using clickers to discern whether students have understood a unit of material, you might want to pose fairly straightforward or "fact-based" questions, ones that will really reveal whether they have "got it." On the other hand, when you are using clickers to foster increased engagement, you probably want to pose questions that are at the "edges" of what you have covered in class, in order to get them to speculate and to push themselves beyond what they already know. Such questions should probably be more abstract, more conceptual, and even more ambiguous than the questions that you pose to merely assess whether they are "getting it." See  "Designing effective questions for classroom response system teaching." (2006) Ian D. Beatty, William J. Gerace, William J. Leonard, and Robert J. Dufresne. American Journal of Physics, V. 74, N. 1, pp. 31-39.
   
   
3. Don't use clickers for high-stakes assessment such as mid-terms. Doing so will merely increase the likelihood of academic dishonesty, such as students peering at one another's clicker buttons, students collecting their friends' clickers and answering on their behalf, and so on. Ideally, clicker questions for the entire course should count for about 5% to 10% of the final grade.
   
   
4. Don't use clickers to simply take attendance. Students will resent having to pay money for a device that merely helps to monitor them.
   
   
5. Use clickers consistently. Doing so will help integrate the clickers into your course, so that they seem central to it rather than a mere add-on. Three or four clicker questions per contact hour might be a reasonable rule of thumb.
   
   
6. Do allow clickers to transform your teaching. Many instructors have found that clickers have helped them shift from a "sage on the stage" approach to a "guide by the side" approach; that is, class time becomes more of a time for discussion and less a time to deliver a lecture. An instructor might, for example, assign a reading in place of a lecture; at the beginning of the next class, the instructor might then test the students on the assigned reading (to ensure that have completed it); class time can then be devoted to discussion, with the discussion being fed by clicker questions and answers.
   
   
7. While students are discussing their responses to a clicker question, use that time to circulate among them in order to listen in on their reasoning. Doing so will help you frame your presentation of the material after the students have discussed it amongst themselves.
   
   
8. Visit a class taught by a colleague who has used clickers for a few terms and see how he or she uses them.
   
   
9. Have a policy for when students forget to bring their clicker. For example, you might tell them that their two lowest clicker scores for the term will be dropped (that way, forgetting to bring a clicker will not diminish their grade if it happens only rarely).

See also:

1. A 15-minute audio podcast pertaining to best practices for clickers.

In this 14-minute minute screencast, Beth Simon describes how she introduces clickers to her students in order to convince those students that clickers can help them learn. Click the video once to watch it; after it starts, you can click it twice to watch it in full screen mode, if you prefer.

Other Resources

1. A FAQ for students pertaining to clickers.
   
   
2. A comprehensive bibliography of articles on clickers, listed by discipline. Most of the articles have links to online versions.
   
   
3. Clicker resources developed by the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia.
   
   
4. Clicker Resources developed by Paul Kates (CTE's Faculty Liaison for Math and Computer Science)
   
   
5. "Seven Things You Should Know about Clickers."
   
   
6.  The learning environment in clicker classrooms: student processes of learning and involvement in large university-level courses using student response systems. Trees, April R. & Jackson, Michele H. (2007).Learning, Media and Technology, 32 (1), 21-40.
   
   
7. "Designing effective questions for classroom response system teaching." (2006) Ian D. Beatty, William J. Gerace, William J. Leonard, and Robert J. Dufresne. American Journal of Physics, V. 74, N. 1, pp. 31-39.
   
   
8. Morton, Mark. A concept map, with hyperlinks to resources, pertaining to clickers. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.
   
   
9. "Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach" Barber, M and Njus, D. (2007).  Clicker evolution: Seeking intelligent design.  CBE—Life Sciences Education, 6, 1-20. 
   
   
10. Caldwell, J.E. (2007). Clickers in the large classroom: current research and best practice tips. CBE, Life Sciences Education. Vol. 6, Spring, 8-20. 
    
    
11. Kaleta, Robert et al. (2007). Student Response Systems: a University of Wisconsin system study of clickers." Educause Center for Applied Research. 2007 (10), 1-12.
    
    
12. Interactive Learning Toolkit. Developed by Eric Mazur's group at Harvard University. Registration is required, but the resource is free.
    
    
13. Ready-made collections of clicker questions:
    
    
    1. Chemistry
       
       
       1. Chemistry ConcepTests from the University of Wisconsin
          General chemistry, organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, and biochemistry.
          
       2. Chemistry ConcepTests from Brandeis University
          General chemistry, developed by the Herzfeld Group.
          
          
    2. Physics
       
       
       1. Physics Concept Tests from University of Colorado-Boulder Courses
          Clicker questions from various physics courses at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
          
       2. Physics clicker question sequences from Ohio State University
          Clicker question sequences developed by the Ohio State University Physics Education Research Group. This resource requires a password, which can be obtained by contacting Lin Ding (ding.65@osu.edu).
       3. Physics
          
          
    3. Biology
       
       Questions developed by departments participating in the the Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia and the University of Colarado. After clicking on a link, you might need to click a particular content unit, in order to be taken to its relevant clicker questions.
       
       
       1. Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology
          
       2. Genetics
       3. Introduction to Molecular and Cell Biology
       4. Immunology
       5. Developmental Biology
       6. Molecular Neurobiology
       7. Physics: Electricity and Magnetism
       8. Molecular Biology
       9. Genetics for Non-Majors
          
          
    4. Geology
       
       Questions developed by departments participating in the the Science Education Initiative at the University of British Columbia and the University of Colarado. After clicking on a link, you might need to click a particular content unit, in order to be taken to its relevant clicker questions.
       
       1. Geological Sciences
          
       2. Computer Science
          
       3. Introduction to Geology 1
       4. Introduction to Geology 2
       5. Environmental Geology
       6. Introduction to Oceanography
       7. Rates and Dates in Earth Sciences
       8. Introduction to Mineralogy
          
          
    5. Math
       
       
       1. Math and Statistics Questions — resource list from Project MathQUEST at Carroll College, Montana
          This website has links to question collections for many college/university level math and statistics courses, as well as other related resources. Project MathQUEST is developing and testing questions for Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Series, Sequences, and Difference Equations, Multivariable Calculus, Integral Calculus, Differential Calculus, and Precalculus.
          
          
    6. Other
       
       
       1. AAAS Science Assessment page
          Questions pertaining to the earth, life, physical sciences, and the nature of science.
          
       2. Clicker Questions for use with PhET Interactive Simulations (various science topics)
          These questions are designed to be used with PhET sims (a collection of interactive simulations that can be downloaded or run online).
          
       3. Astronomy ClassAction Questions and Interactives from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
          Astronomy questions and resources designed to encourage student engagement in the classroom.

Specific Products

Click a panel below to expand it.

Instructors at the University of Waterloo who are interested in adopting clickers should contact Paul Kates for assistance. Paul will meet with you to discuss your clicker needs, to demo the clickers, and to provide guidance as you and your students move forward with them. Paul also maintains a useful web page for clickers at UW.