The Mobile Participation System: Not Just Another Clicker

Electronic student response systems have become common in institutions of higher education as a means to encourage student engagement, mainly in large lectures. Research has shown that such engagement increases student interest and subsequent learning of the material. To manage this interaction logistically, students use specialized, handheld electronic devices, similar to remote controls, to interact with the instructor. The Mobile Participation System (MPS) is a response system that reinvents student-instructor interaction through a web-based interface, mobile-phone applications, and text messaging, allowing students to respond to questions posed during lecture with cellular/mobile phone devices. The main advantages of the MPS system are: 1) it allows instructors to interact with students during lecture, 2) it allows students to use devices that they already own, 3) it allows students to respond to not just multiple-choice, but also open-ended questions, and finally 4) it can be used to enhance distance-learning classes. The goal of MPS is to both serve as an effective Student Response System (SRS), while also providing a means to analyze SRS use in higher education. The first phase of MPS development studies the student’s perception on its use in the classroom. This data is presented in our paper, in addition to the structure of the Mobile Participation System. The paper also includes a data analysis on MPS effectiveness, as well as several case study applications.