The effects of using student response keypads on student motivation and achievement in high school biology classes : a time series design

This study investigated the effects of using student response keypads as a tool to provide the critical factors necessary for student motivation. Keypads provided students with a means to actively participate in instruction and receive immediate feedback and reinforcement. They also provided systematic and useful feedback for the teacher, so that student misunderstandings or errors in the lesson could be corrected before they accumulated.

Using a time-series research design, student motivation was evaluated in terms of student achievement levels on daily classwork, unit tests, and a comprehensive final exam. A questionnaire was used to evaluate student self- efficacy and goal setting. The effects of treatment were determined by evaluating the patterns in the data collected for nine weeks before treatment and during the nine weeks treatment period. Eighty nine students in five preexisting Biology classes (three college prep and two general level classes) from a north Georgia county high school participated in the research.

During the treatment period, student motivation increased to the point where students studied more than twice as many chapters and did twice as many classwork assignments. At the same time that students were studying substantially more, they were also earning higher grades. Grades for classwork went from a mean of 71% to 92%; unit test grades went from 60% to 84%, and the final exam grade went from 55% to 92%. The students and the class teacher expressed amazement at the amount of work students were doing and how easy it was for them to learn. Student self-efficacy ratings increased 20.3% and personal goal setting increased 26.5%. As grade means increased, the gap between the lower level students and the upper level students decreased substantially.

The significance of this research is that it demonstrates how to do what, research says, educators should be doing. It demonstrates that the tools are presently available and applicable in a natural classroom setting to substantially and significantly improve the quality of instruction; thus, improving student motivation and academic achievement, while at the same time promoting a sense of worth and well-being for students.