Electronic Audience Response System in the secondary mathematics classroom to engage students

Abstract

There is a current push for students to reach higher levels of achievement in mathematics in order to compete in today’s technologically changing world—a push that is being led by the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). The issue with this new push, however, is that most students are disinterested in mathematics, resulting in them choosing to not participate in class. Active participation is a form of behavioral engagement that can lead to cognitive engagement and higher achievement. To improve participation, the expectancy-value theory suggests that the perceived benefit of participation needs to be increased while the cost reduced. Electronic audience response systems (EARS) have the potential to accomplish this, and they have begun to be implemented at the college level with primarily positive results. The purpose of this study is to examine if EARS can similarly improve student participation and achievement in the secondary geometry classroom. Using a quasi- experimental design, this study compared students’ participation using hand raising versus EARS devices in the classroom and found that student participation increased significantly when using EARS. To look at achievement, a treatment and comparison group design was used, and despite that no statistically significant difference was found, the results do support EARS’ potential to improve achievement. Lastly, this study looked at student and teacher perceptions of using the EARS in the classroom, and found mixed results.