An Interactive Learning System for Improving Students’ Learning Experience in Classroom Teaching

Students’ knowledge acquisition in conventional classroom teaching is difficult to assess during lectures. To enhance students’ learning experience and improve interaction between students and lecturers, we adopted the Student Response System (SRS), an instant interactive learning system for assessing students’ knowledge acquisition effectively during lectures. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of adopting the interactive learning system in improving student learning in classroom teaching.

A single cohort of Year 1 nursing students was recruited by a convenience sampling method. Knowledge-based questions were given and evaluation was conducted using the SRS. Three knowledge-based questions (score=0–3), covering the contents to be delivered in the lecture, were asked. The same questions were asked again at the end of the lecture in order to assess students’ instant knowledge acquisition from the lecture. Students’ evaluation on the SRS (students’ engagement and satisfaction) was also assessed by a 5-point Likert scale (i.e. from “very disagree” to “very agree”, score=1–5). The evaluation was designed using a 3-dimension engagement model to assess whether adopting the SRS could improve students’ engagement and satisfaction during lectures.

Out of 233 students, 203 participated in this study. A paired t-test result indicated that the mean student score on the knowledge-based questions improved from 1.81 to 2.53. Such an improvement was reasonable and demonstrated that SRS can be used to evaluate students’ instant knowledge acquisition.

The students favoured the adoption of the SRS in lectures regarding their behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement in learning. The overall engagement and satisfaction scores were fairly positive, which indicated that the SRS is a better way to enhance their learning experience in classroom teaching. Similar studies can be performed on other groups of students in other lectures to improve data reliability.