Revisiting Use of Real-Time Polling for Learning Transfer

Abstract

Instructors in five different undergraduate courses designed their courses to include real-time polling to increase their students’ levels of engagement and participation in an attempt to enhance students’ learning transfer. This mixed methods research study examined the results of those efforts after querying students’ perceptions of whether the use of real-time polling had an effect on their understanding of the course content, their levels of participation in the classroom, and their levels of engagement in the classroom. Instructors used Poll Everywhere to incorporate the real-time polling in classes where 98% of students had suitable devices to respond to the polls. Results from this survey indicate that the use of real-time polling helped students better understand the course material and also increased their level of participation and engagement.