Clickers: enabling valuable diagnostic feedback to both students and instructors in real time

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the capability of classroom response systems (clickers) in enabling real-time diagnostic assessment during tutorial sessions. The study involved two hundred and seven students who were divided into five tutorial groups. Clickers were used to conduct the Task Evaluation and Reflection Instrument for Student Self-Assessment (TERISSA) procedure in order to anonymously reveal students' individual evaluations and reflections to the whole class. It was discovered that 62% of the surveyed participants were able to clearly identify the study areas that required their immediate attention and that 54% of the surveyed addressed these learning needs. It was also found that the use of clickers with TERISSA enabled tutors to obtain a real-time evaluation of students' prior knowledge and their misconceptions. Differences in prior knowledge and misconceptions between five tutorial groups were also established.