Accountability and the use of classroom response devices

Classroom response devices, such as clickers, have proved effective in improving student engagement during class time. We performed a study to investigate how much of this improvement was due to heightened accountability, either because students were required to take and pass a pre-quiz over the lecture material, or because students were given credit for each answer submitted. We found that the presence of a pre-quiz was associated with a much higher response rate, 38.5% vs. 29.3%. Giving credit for answering questions also boosted the response rate, from 30.3% to 43.2%. We also found that asking more questions during class tended was associated with a lower response rate. When only one question was asked, the response rate was above 60%, but if more than five questions were asked, the response rate was barely 30%. These findings suggest that accountability is important in making effective use of classroom response devices.