Open AccessAre Audience Response Systems Worth the Cost? Comparing Question-Driven Teaching Strategies for Emergency Medical Technician Education
Author(s) -
Lauren Maloney,
James P. Dilger,
P Werfel,
Linda M. Cimino
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the internet journal of allied health sciences and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1540-580X
DOI - 10.46743/1540-580x/2018.1704
Subject(s) - technician , multiple choice , comprehension , curriculum , test (biology) , medical education , randomized controlled trial , demographics , medicine , blueprint , psychology , medical emergency , significant difference , computer science , pedagogy , engineering , surgery , electrical engineering , paleontology , mechanical engineering , demography , sociology , biology , programming language
Purpose: As Emergency Medical Technician educators develop curricula to meet new national educational standards, effective teaching strategies validated for course content and unique student demographics are warranted. Three methods for answering multiple choice questions presented during lectures were compared: a) Audience Response System (ARS, clickers), b) hand-raising-with-eyes-closed (no-cost option), and c) passive response (no-cost option). The purpose was to determine if using the ARS resulted in improved exam scores. Method: 113 Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) students participated in this cross-over, block randomized, controlled trial, which was incorporated into their Cardiac Emergencies and Pulmonary Emergencies course lectures. Students took pretests, immediate post-tests, and delayed post-tests composed of multiple choice questions that targeted either lower or higher order thinking. Results: For both lectures, there were significant improvements on all immediate post-test scores compared to all pretest scores (p Conclusions: In this cohort, incorporation of no-cost question-driven teaching strategies into lectures was as effective as an ARS at encouraging significant, immediate and sustained improvements in answering multiple choice questions.