MOBILE DEVICES AS A CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEM: AN IMPROVEMENT OF CLICKER DEVICES

Classroom Response Systems (CRS) are used by professors in their lectures to get feedback from students. Until now the most used CRSs are clickers because they have shown a significant improvement in participation, interactivity, and student's academic performance. However, these devices present some disadvantages, such as high cost, installation time, configuration, limitations of equipment capabilities, and its availability in the centers. In order to reduce these disadvantages, we have designed a CRS based on Web technology and compared it with a conventional CRS clicker to determine whether the observed problems are solved with our system. For this purpose, data about the spent time on installation and configuration, among other parameters, were collected, and two surveys were developed in professors and students. The results showed that the time required to run on our CRS with mobile devices, is shorter than the time required by clickers, and both students and professors consider them easier to use and useful for their lectures. Improvements in our CRS can support the implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), allowing work in groups, making more participatory lectures and enabling the creation of new teaching strategies.