To click or not to click: Introducing audience response system during undergraduate teaching to improve academic performance

Objective: To determine if the use of audience response system (ARS) during large group teaching to undergraduate medical students promotes active learning, improves retention of information and leads to an improvement in academic performance.

Method: ARS was used during a 12-week teaching period in the first semester of the first year of the medical program from October 2012 to December 2012. Lecturers integrated Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) into their PowerPoint presentations together with ARS during Anatomy and Physiology lectures. Students were asked to discuss and respond to the MCQs during the lectures.

Design: A Prospective Interventional Study.

Setting: RCSI Bahrain.

Result: Using ARS did not improve academic performance in Anatomy and Physiology, but students reported that using clickers during lectures provided a more interactive learning environment increasing student engagement, promoted active-learning and helped students identify gaps in knowledge.

Conclusion: Using ARS in large group teaching had no impact on academic performance in the Anatomy and Physiology rich modules. However, students overwhelmingly enjoyed using clickers during lectures as they promoted active learning and helped them identify gaps in their knowledge.