A comparison of individual and group polling strategies on students' academic performance and attention level

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of polling technologies integrating with strategies on students' academic performance and related brainwave signals. The participants were 34 students who registered in the educational research methodology course in a national university in Taiwan. The pre-class quiz, in-class quiz, brainwave of attention levels, open-ended questionnaires, and the 20-minute structured interview were used in this study. This study was conducted over a period of three weeks. Over the three weeks, the teacher conducted “three types of polling activities.” Week 1 was devoted to individual clicker polling, Week 2 to group polling on tablets, and Week 3 to group polling on tablets with a competition game. The results showed that polling systems help promote learning outcomes, and if a team was given an opportunity to discuss a topic after it was announced, this would help to increase attention levels. This study suggests that future researchers could design team polling activities in which students can take turns acting as a group leader in order to help build a team consensus and to avoid passive group member participation.