ANALYSIS OF ACTIVE LEARNING METHODS -CLICKER TECHNOLOGY VERSUS CLASS DISCUSSION

Sandi Findlay-Thompson
Peter Mombourquette
Bruce Thompson
Karen Blotnicky
Mount Saint Vincent University
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to examine the grade outcomes between two active
learning methods – clicker technology versus class discussion. Numerical grades were compared
between four sections of a university 3000 level operations management class. Two sections in the
fall of 2013 used clicker technology as the active learning method and two sections in the winter
of 2014 used class discussion as the active learning method. At the end of the fall 2013 semester,
post-term interviews were conducted with the students that used the clicker technology to gather
information on their perceived views of a learning environment that used clicker technology. The
findings of this study were that the use of clicker technology had no statistically significant
difference on numerical grade outcomes. However, on each criterion such as student satisfaction
and perceived feedback the results indicated that each criterion mean was significantly greater
than the midpoint of the Likert-type scale used for this survey.