The Use of the Audience Response System in Anatomy Laboratory Practical Examinations

The Audience Response System (ARS) has been used at our institution for approximately five years. ARS was initially used in the large lecture classroom for two purposes - to engage students’ interest in a topic and collect answers to multiple-choice question quizzes and tests (Stowell & Nelson, 2007; Morling, McAuliffe, Cohen, & DiLorenzo, 2008). The use of ARS has not yet been explored in the small classroom using non-multiple choice questions. An anatomy laboratory practical examination (“practical”) traditionally involves small numbers of students using paper-and-pencil examinations with fill-in-the-blank questions. Using ARS to record student answers in a practical requires changing both the way ARS has been traditionally used and the way the practical has been administered. The use of ARS for the fill-in-the-blank questions requires students be given a numerical list with possible answers. This, in essence, changes the type of question from fill-in-the-blank to matching and changes the level of cognition needed from “recall” to “recognize” (Anderson, 1999). We had concerns that students would engage with the material in a different, less substantial, manner once they realized a different level of cognition was needed to pass the practicals. We were also concerned that the emerging use of this technology would add a new level of stress to an otherwise already stressful atmosphere, especially since two of the four instructors had little-to-no experience with the ARS. Different engagement with the material and additional stress might be recognized by a change in scores on the practicals. The aims of this study, then, were to determine if 1). course instructors were a factor in determining practical examination scores and 2). grades from students who used the ARS to record answers in practicals were significantly different from students who used the traditional paper-and-pencil testing method.

Keywords

Anatomy, Audience response system, Testing and assessment

Citation

Polich, Susan, Cario, Cara H., Monroe, Mary S., and Rodriguez, Carmen M. 2009. "The Use of the Audience Response System in Anatomy Laboratory Practical Examinations". Poster presented at the 6th annual conference for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. October 22-25, 2009: Bloomington, IN.

Type

Presentation

Collections

2009 Conference Presentations

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