Socrative

In looking for a Student Response System (SRS) to use for my presentation, I considered a few. In my last post, I highlighted some of the positive attributes of SRS’s, such as increasing participation and engaging students, which directly or indirectly resulted in improved grades in a few studies. However, there were also some potential barriers to their usage identified in those studies. In my past, the main one I used was “clickers” and the majority of research has been focused on their use. Essentially it’s a device that takes a real-time poll from students and displays the results on a monitor. The main limitation to their usage is the need for equipment, software and their associated costs; new clickers generally cost around $50 each. With the increased popularity of smartphones and access to the internet, cloud-based response systems are more versatile and more accessible. Another SRS I considered was Poll Everywhere. It is easy to use and does not require equipment other than a smartphone. However, as my topic relates to radiology and incorporates many images into the presentation, I found that Poll Everywhere didn’t have the imaging features that I wanted. The Student Response System that I decided on for my presentation is called Socrative.

I first learned about Socrative during my radiology elective at Western University. The first thing I noticed about the program was its simple yet engaging nature. For students, they need nothing more than to just download the app on their smartphone (which takes around 5 seconds). There is no account needed and the interface is very user-friendly. For presenters, an account is easily created with an equally user-friendly interface to make the quiz or poll. Furthermore, there are many formats one can use to make the quiz, including a quick poll for on-the-fly questions and premade quizzes for testing application after a lecture. These quizzes can incorporate images (a feature essential to my presentation) that can be displayed and zoomed-in on the students’ smartphone for better clarity. Finally, the answers (true/false, multiple choice, open answer) are collected and displayed on the monitor, similar to other SRS’s.

In deciding on Socrative, I was interested in exploring what literature exists on its use. Socrative was released in 2012 and since then, there have been a number of studies and feasibility projects, the majority focusing on student perceptions. For example, Dervan 2013 used Socrative in a Contemporary Sports Management Class in Dublin. Following, he distributed a survey to identify student perceptions on its ease of use, whether it helped their learning, how it helped their learning, indications for future use and perceived disadvantages. 96% of students thought Socrative was easy or very easy to use, 92% thought it improved engagement, 77% wanted to use it more or significantly more the following semester and 58% thought there were no perceived disadvantages. With regards to how students thought it improved their learning, the overwhelming majority thought the SRS made lectures more interactive and introduced some fun into the learning environment. Of particular note was that it gives students who are generally shy a chance to participate anonymously without fear of getting questions wrong. Students also thought Socrative introduced some competition and highlighted gaps in their knowledge, introducing some motivation to learn. In terms of perceived disadvantages, there was potential that students would not take the interactions seriously, make inappropriate comments and possible technological failure. In my opinion, technology remains the greatest barrier as some students may not have data and/or access to the internet. With increased availability of WiFi at educational centers, this should be less of an issue moving forward.

Overall, I am very much looking forward to try Socrative in my presentation. I think it will make the presentation more engaging and keep students interested in the material (radiology may not be the most interesting to some!). At the same time, a big risk with incorporating technology into lectures is using it for the sake of using it. In those cases, there may be much time wasted in playing around with the technology. Thus, I still plan on using traditional methods of hand-raising and audience polling for simple questions. Knowing why one is using an SRS is very important, as highlighted by many experts. For myself, I am using an SRS primarily because I think engaging the audience in an esoteric topic such as radiology is critical to maintain attention and interest. Ultimately, I hope there will be studies done to show that using Socrative to maintain interest translates into improved learning. 

-DW