Student's Perceptions of Technology-Mediated Open-Text Questions in the Classroom: a Case Study

Technological advancements enabled new possibilities for interacting within a classroom or, in general, with an audience. Starting with dedicated devices called clickers, the technology leveraged personal general-use devices such as smartphones and tablets. Terminology varies, but this is generally called response technology, response system, or student response system. This research aimed to explore the students' perceptions concerning technology-mediated opentext questions and the various factors that influence students' learning during lectures. This research adopts a case study approach, employing qualitative, in-depth interviews with ten students from a large science and technology university in northern Europe. In this exploratory research, interview sessions were digitally recorded, audios were converted to text through Microsoft Word, and NVivo was used for thematic analysis. The study uncovered student engagement and interactivity, focus and attention, learning and knowledge retention, and challenges as key themes that impact student learning. Findings indicated that students generally had positive experiences with this approach, though they also encountered several challenges. Notable examples from the findings: the technology-mediated questions combined with anonymity allow increased freedom of expression for the students; the modality for collecting responses can feel quite limited, especially when using a smartphone or similar device as input. Some identified themes, e.g., challenges encountered, can be further classified into additional subthemes, e.g., technological, pedagogical, and content-related. Combining open-text questions with other types in the context of a lecture opens opportunities for active participation, formative assessment, reflections, scaffolding discussions, and, in general, higher-level learning activities and processes. Teachers and technologists could consider these findings to optimize the implementation of such tools in classroom settings.