Audience Response is a type of interaction associated with the use of online systems such as presentations to facilitate interaction between a presenter and their audience. Systems for co-located audiences combine Wireless hardware with presentation software. Systems for remote audiences may use telephones or web polls for audiences watching through television or the internet. Various names are used for this technology, including real-time response, the worm, dial testing, and Audience Response meters. In educational settings, such systems are often called "student response systems" or "personal response systems". The hand-held remote control that students use to convey their responses to questions is often called a "clicker".
More recent entrants into the market do not require specialized hardware. There are commercial, open-source, cloud-based tools that allow responses from the audience using a range of personal computing devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and laptops. These types of systems have added new types of functionality as well, such as free text responses that are aggregated into sortable word clouds, as well as the more traditional true/false and multiple choice style questions. This type of system also mitigates some of the concerns articulated below in the "Challenges of Audience Response" section.
Co-located audiences
Hardware Based Audience Response: The presenter uses a computer and a video projector to project a presentation for the audience to see. In the most common use of such Audience Response systems, presentation slides (built with the Audience Response software) display questions with several possible answers, more commonly referred to as multiple choice questions. The audience participates by selecting the answer they believe to be correct and pushing the corresponding key on their individual Wireless keypad. Their answer is then sent to a base station–or receiver–that is also attached to the presenter's computer. The Audience Response software collects the results and the aggregate data is graphically displayed within the presentation for all to see. Some clickers also have additional keys, allowing the presenter to ask (and audience members to answer) true/false questions or even questions calling for particular numerical answers.
Depending on the presenter's requirements, the data can either be collected anonymously (e.g., in the case of voting) or it can be traced to individual participants in circumstances where tracking is required (e.g., classroom quizzes, homework, or questions that ultimately count towards a student's course grade). Incoming data may also be stored in a database that resides on the host computer and data reports can be created after the presentation for further analysis.
Software/Cloud Based Audience Response: The presenter uses a computer to create the questions, sometimes called polls. In this case, however, those questions can be open-ended, dial testing, voteable, open ended, or multiple choice. Those questions are then downloaded into the presenter's presentation program of choice. During the presentation, the questions automatically display within the presentation program, or from a web browser, and can in most cases even be displayed only on the participant's tablet computer or smartphone. Results are instantly tabulated via the internet and presented on screen in real-time, including grading the "correct" answer if desired. Some services offer presenters real time moderation for open-ended responses or questions prior to displaying them on screen.
Depending on the presenter's requirements, the data can be collected anonymously, or it can be traced to individual participants who have created accounts in advance of the poll. This method is commonly used on corporate training where attendance must be verified and in classrooms, where grades must be assigned. Data from both methods can be saved and analyzed by the presenter and loaded manually or via API into learning management systems.
Benefits There are many benefits with the use of Audience Response systems (ARS). The tendency to answer based on crowd psychology is reduced because unlike hand raising, it is difficult to see which selection others are making. The ARS also allows for faster tabulation of answers for large groups than manual methods. Additionally, many college professors use ARS systems to take attendance or grade answers in large lecture halls, which would be highly time-consuming without the system.
Audience Response offers many potential benefits to those who use it in group settings. Improves attentiveness: In a study done at four University of Wisconsin campuses (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, and University of Wisconsin–Whitewater), faculty members and students in courses using clickers were given a survey that assessed their attitudes about clicker use in Fall 2005 and its effect on teaching and learning. Of the 27 faculty members who responded to the survey, 94% either agreed or strongly agreed with the claim, "Clickers increased student engagement in the classroom." The remaining 6% responded that they were neutral about that claim (none of the faculty respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the claim). Similarly, 69% of the 2,684 students respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the claim, "Clickers led me to become engaged in class," with only 13% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with the claim. Increases knowledge retention: In the same University of Wisconsin study, 74% of faculty respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "Clickers have been beneficial to my students' learning," while the remaining 26% selected a neutral response (no faculty members disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement). Similarly, 53% of student respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Clickers have been beneficial to my learning,” while only 19% disagreed or strongly disagreed. In a related study, Catherine Crouch and Eric Mazur more directly measured the results of Peer Instruction and "ConcepTests" on student learning and retention of information at the end of a semester. Faculty members using this "Peer Instruction" pedagogical technique present information to students, and then ask the students a question that tests their understanding of a key concept. Students indicate their answer to the instructor using an Audience Response system and then they discuss with their fellow students why they chose a particular answer and explain to one another their underlying thinking. The instructor then asks the question again to see the new student's results. The study authors used scanned forms and hand-raising for Audience Response in the initial year of the study and then switched to a computer-based Audience Response system in the following years. The "clicker" use was only part of a multi-pronged attempt to introduce peer instruction, but overall they found that "the students taught with P[eer] I[instruction] (Spring 2000, N = 155) significantly outperformed the students taught traditionally (Spring 1999, N = 178)" on two standard tests, the "Force Concept Inventory and the Mechanics Baseline Test" and on traditional course exams as well.Crouch, Catherine H., and Mazur, Eric. "Peer Instruction: Ten years of experience and results." Am. J. Phys. Vol. 69, No. 9, September 2001. pp. 971–72. Available at . A Johns Hopkins study on the use of Audience Response systems in Continuing Medical Education (CME) for physicians and other health personnel found no significant difference in knowledge scores between ARS and non-ARS participants in a clinical round table trial involving 42 programs across the United States.Miller, Redonda G., Ashar, Bimal H. and Getz, Kelly J. "Evaluation of an audience response system for the continuing education of health professionals." Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions. Vol. 23, No. 2, 2003. pp.109–115. Abstract at Polls anonymously: Unlike a show of hands or a raising of cards with letters on them, sending responses by hand-held remotes is much more anonymous. Except perhaps for a student (our audience member) who watches what the person next to them submits, the other students (or audience members) can't really see what response their fellow audience members are giving. The software that summarizes the results aggregates the responses, listing what percent of respondents chose a particular answer, but not what individual respondents said. With some Audience Response systems, the software allows you to ask questions in truly anonymous mode, so that the database (or "gradebook") is not even associating answers with individual respondents. Tracks individual responses: The "clickers" that audience members use to send their responses to the receiver (and thus to the presenter's computer) are often registered to a particular user, with some kind of identifying number. When a user sends his/her response, the information is stored in a database (sometimes called the "Gradebook" in academic models of Audience Response systems) associated with each particular number, and presenters have access to that information after the end of the interactive session. Audience Response systems can often be linked to a Learning management system, which increases the ability to keep track of individual student performance in an academic setting. Displays polling results immediately: The Audience Response system includes software that runs on the presenter's computer that records and tabulates the responses by audience members. Generally, once a question has ended (polling from the audience has ceased), the software displays a bar chart indicating what percent of audience members chose the various possible responses. For questions with right/wrong answers, audience members can get immediate feedback about whether they chose the correct answer, since it can be indicated on the bar chart. For survey-type polling questions, audience members can see from the summary how many other audience members chose the same response, along with how many audience members (or what percent of the audience) chose different responses. Creates an interactive and fun learning environment: Clickers are in many ways novel devices, so the novelty itself can add interest to the learning environment. More important, though, is the interactive nature of Audience Response systems. Having been asked a particular question about a concept or opinion, students are genuinely interested in seeing the results. They want to learn if they answered the question correctly, and they want to see how their response compares to the responses of their fellow audience members. The increased student engagement cited in the University of Wisconsin study (see footnote 1 below) attests to the ability of Audience Response systems to improve the learning environment. Confirms audience understanding of key points immediately: In the University of Wisconsin study previously cited, faculty members were unanimous in their recognition of this key advantage of Audience Response systems. In other words, 100% of the faculty respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the claim, "Clickers allowed me to assess student knowledge on a particular concept." Students also recognized this benefit for their own self-assessment. Seventy-five percent of student respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the claim, "Clickers helped me get instant feedback on what I knew and didn't know." In a published article, a member of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Physics Education Research Group (UMPERG) articulated this advantage in more detail, using the term "Classroom Communication System (CCS)" for what this article has been calling an Audience Response system.