Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Koos Winnips et al.
use of the software. Students sent in their reaction via SMS, Mobile Internet or Twitter. Figure 2
shows how reactions can be given via Mobile Internet.
Figure 2: Sending in a reaction to the lecturer via a (mobile) web browser
During the break the lecturer views the reactions on his own computer, and responds after the break.
Student reactions that were not covered during the actual lecture were posted in the forum of the
(Blackboard) learning environment, allowing students and lecturers to reply and discuss.
After the final exam of the course, students were asked to fill out (anonymously) a web questionnaire,
consisting of 14 Likert-scale type of questions and two open ended questions. Main questions for the
questionnaire were:
Are students better motivated in lectures because of being able to respond?
Do students understand course content better by being able to respond?
Do students see the use of posting on questions in the forum of Blackboard?
Do students think they have better contact with their lecturer?
In what ways would students like to respond during lectures?
Technical: did the software work? Was it user-friendly?
3. Results
Student reactions
In total, 38 responses were collected, with reactions varying widely (from sending in the message
“test”, to technical issues (“could you please number your slides?”) to content questions (“ What would
happen in the experiment if subject X with brain damage to the right half would have the paper in his
left hand side?”). The lecturer responded directly to a number of questions in class, the rest of the
questions were posted on, and answered via the forum in Blackboard.
Table 2 gives an overview of the type of reactions given:
The bulk of reactions concerned course content (with 13 out of 38 reactions). These were direct
questions regarding what was presented, sometimes directly referring to a slide of the lecturers’
presentation. The reactions stating an opinion/emotion were mainly responding to this study, with all
four reactions responding positively to the study (“kudos for the technical advances”). Suggestions to
the lectures concerned issues such as numbering slides, or speaking a bit louder. The two reactions
concerning community building were personal questions to the lecturer (“How was your trip to Kuala
Lumpur?”). Technical questions concerned placing content on the electronic learning environment,
course issues (“Will there be guidelines for reading the book?”).
881