Quiz Sessions Research Articles

Who Wants to Be a Geomorphologist? Gamification in a BSc Teaching Course

Despite the importance of Earth sciences in addressing the global challenges that humanity is presently facing, attention toward related disciplines has been witnessed to be globally declining at various levels, including education and university teaching. To increase students’ engagement and explore alternative teaching activities, a didactical experiment was carried out at the University of Florence (Italy); the teaching course, “basic elements of geomorphology”, was reorganized to include relevant elements of gamification. Parallel to the frontal lessons, a competition based on a recurring quiz game was conducted. This activity was called “Who wants to be a Geomorphologist?”, clearly paraphrasing a notorious TV show. During every lesson, a moment was included where the students used their mobile devices to access a series of quizzes that were previously prepared by the teacher to test the reasoning skills of the students and their abilities to make connections between distinct topics. A commercial educational app was used to organize the activity, run the quiz sessions, assign points, and update the leaderboard in real time. A quantitative evaluation procedure assessed the positive impacts in terms of supporting the learning process, improving the engagement in the teaching course, and fostering the liking for geomorphology.

Cognitive discourse during a group quiz activity in a blended learning organic chemistry course

Abstract Student-centered approaches are critical to improving outcomes in STEM courses. Collaborative learning, in particular, allows students to co-construct understanding of concepts and refine their skills in analyzing and applying information. For collaborative learning to be effective, groups must engage in productive dialogue. The work reported here characterizes the quality of dialogue during group quizzes in a first-semester organic chemistry course. The group quiz sessions were video and audio recorded. The recordings were transcribed and coded using the Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive (ICAP) framework. The quiz prompts were analyzed using Marzano’s taxonomy. In this study, students within the group demonstrated varying degrees of interactional quality as defined by the ICAP framework. Our data also indicate that the level of constructive and interactive dialogue is highest and most consistent when prompts are at Marzano Level 3 or higher. Marzano Level 3 prompts required students to compare and contrast concepts or extend their understanding of concepts by developing an analogy. Any benefit derived from collaborative learning depends on the quality of dialogue during the group discussion. Implications of these results for research and teaching are offered.

Introduction of Interactivity Using Quiz in Teaching Anatomy to First Year Undergraduate Medical Students

Background: Long duration of continuous lectures make the students loose interest in the subject of anatomy. This in turn affects their learning and performance. So, there is a necessity to introduce interactive teaching method like quiz that will motivate them to become good learners. The purpose of interactive teaching methods is generation of interest in the subject and acquirement of more knowledge in general, active and participatory learning, development of life-long learning habits and attitudes, acquire, retain and apply the knowledge, active involvement of students and thorough understanding of the subject. Keeping this in view, we tried to implement quiz as an interactive teaching technique in Anatomy and evaluate their effectiveness and impact on learning of the students. Methods: Quiz was introduced as a teaching and learning method for two regions of Anatomy- Abdomen & Pelvis and Head & Neck. The students and faculty were asked to give their feedback after the Quiz sessions. The data generated from feedback form was tabulated and analyzed. Results: 4 faculty (n=5) and 132 students (n=144) are very positive and looking forward to use of Quiz as an interactive method of learning in the future. 124 students feel that this method will enhance their exam performances. 4 faculty and 125 students feel other subject teachers should also start using this method. Conclusions: Majority of students and faculty are enthusiastic about using Quiz as an interactive method of teaching and learning. Majority of students also stated that they feel their exam performance will also be increased by the use of this method. This will cause awareness among other subject teachers also and a broader administration of such methods will be seen in near future with an attempt to enhance motivation, learning and exam performance of our students. Keywords: Quiz, Interactivity, Medical students

Use of Social Media as a Platform for Education and Support for People With Diabetes During a Global Pandemic.

Patient education is a fundamental aspect of self-management of diabetes. The aim of this study was to understand whether a social media platform is a viable method to deliver education to people with diabetes and understand if people would engage and interact with it. Education sessions were provided via 3 platforms in a variety of formats. "Tweetorials" and quizzes were delivered on the diabetes101 Twitter account, a virtual conference via Zoom and video presentations uploaded to YouTube. Audience engagement during and after the sessions were analyzed using social media metrics including impressions and engagement rate using Twitter analytics, Tweepsmap, and YouTube Studio. A total of 22 "tweetorial" sessions and 5 quizzes with a total of 151 polls (both in tweetorial and quiz sessions) receiving a total of 21,269 votes took place. Overall, the 1-h tweetorial sessions gained 1,821,088 impressions with an engagement rate of 6.3%. The sessions received a total of 2,341 retweets, 2,467 replies and 10,060 likes. The quiz days included 113 polls receiving 16,069 votes. The conference covered 8 topics and was attended live by over 100 people on the day. The video presentations on YouTube have received a total of 2,916 views with a watch time of 281 h and 8,847 impressions. Despite the limitations of social media, it can be harnessed to provide relevant reliable information and education about diabetes allowing people the time and space to learn at their own pace.

The Development of a Collaborated Gamified E-Quiz and Strategy Game Mobile Application to Increase Students’ Motivation and Continuance Usage Intention

Gamification has been taken seriously as an educational approach that is able to facilitate learning, encourage motivation and engagement, improve learner participation and lesson interactivity, and stimulate learners towards the expansion of their knowledge. Given the changes in the digital world over the last decades, students of the current generation expect technology to be used in advancing their learning, requiring a need to change traditional passive learning methodologies to an active multisensory experimental learning methodology. This study introduced, ‘Kingdom Quizzes’ (KQ) a gamified e-quiz mobile application which was previously known as ‘Quiz Seeker’ mobile application as an assisting tool in teaching and learning. The purpose of the development of KQ is to enhance the students’ motivation in academic task as well as retaining the users of a gamified e-quiz. KQ is divided into two interconnected modules; (i) quiz module, and (ii) game module. This product focused on the ‘reward’ element resulted from ranking in the quiz session in which it will be passed on to the next game session. The marks and rank that the students gained in the quiz session will reward them with coins or ‘life’ item in their game inventory. This creates a sense of ‘motivation’ in students to do well in their quiz sessions as well as creating a ‘continuance intention’ in using the product which means high tendency to keep executing e-quiz for various other subjects. Based on the survey conducted with 141 respondents, KQ basically managed to fulfill the objectives of the product development which were to increase the students’ (i) motivation as much as 93.7% and (ii) continuance intention in using the gamified e-quiz application as much as 88.72%. Based on the Pearson’s correlation analysis, motivation has a significantly moderate relationship with continuance usage intention, (r = 0.607**, p = 0.000). Moreover, the multiple regression analysis using the enter method also proved that predictor motivation contributed 36.9% towards the continuance intention of the students to use KQ. The product does not only manage to be adopted among the targeted audiences, but based on this study it has a huge future potential as the choice for mobile-based quick formative assessment.

Use of an Adaptive e-Learning Platform as a Formative Assessment Tool in the Cardiovascular System Course Component of an MBBS Programme.

BackgroundTechnology-enhanced learning includes the adaptive e-learning platform, a data-driven method with computer algorithms, providing customised learning enhancing critical thinking of individual learners. “Firecracker” – an online adaptive e-learning platform, and assessment software, promotes critical thinking, helps prepare students for courses and high-stakes examinations, and evaluates progress relative to co-learners. The objectives of this study were to determine the usage rates of Firecracker, examine the performance of Firecracker formative quizzes, identify the correlation between Firecracker use and performance with that of performance at summative course assessments, and assess students’ satisfaction with Firecracker usage.MethodsStudy participants were Year-2 MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) students (n=91) of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. The Firecracker Administrator uploaded quizzes covering basic science content in the Cardiovascular System course. Access, usage, and performance on Firecracker formative quizzes were retrieved from the Firecracker dashboard. A questionnaire sought the views of study participants.ResultsSeven sets of quizzes were administered over nine weeks, with weekly student completion rates ranging from 53% to 73%. Mean quiz scores ranged from 52% to 72%. Students completing >4 quiz sessions compared to those completing ≤4 demonstrated significantly better performance in Firecracker quizzes (P<0.01), final examinations (P<0.01) and in-course assessment plus final examination (P<0.05) scores. Correlations between overall Firecracker performance and in-course assessment marks (P<0.05); between total overall Firecracker performance and final examination (P<0.01); and overall Firecracker performance and total course marks (P<0.01) were all significant. Most students (70%) were happy using Firecracker and felt it complemented coursework (78%) and prepared them for course exams (58%) (P<0.01).ConclusionOverall, Firecracker was perceived very positively and welcomed by the students. Students were satisfied with the Firecracker as a formative assessment tool, and its use correlated with improved performance in the course examinations.

Intergroup 'Skype' Quiz Sessions in Care Homes to Reduce Loneliness and Social Isolation in Older People.

Video calls using software such as Skype, Zoom and FaceTime can improve socialisation among older people and family, however it is unknown if video calls are able to improve socialisation among older people and their peers. Twenty-two residents across three British care homes engaged with each other using ‘Skype quiz’ sessions with the support of staff once a month over an eight-month trial. Video calls were accessed via a ‘Skype on Wheels’ intervention that comprised a wheeled device that could hold an iPad, or through Skype TV. Residents met other residents from the three care homes to build new friendships and participate in a thirty-minute quiz session facilitated by eight staff. Staff were collaborators who recruited older people, implemented the intervention and provided feedback that was analysed using thematic analysis. Residents enjoyed being able to see other residents’ faces and surroundings. Analysis of the field notes revealed five themes of: residents with dementia remember faces not technology, inter and intra connectedness, re-gaining sense of self and purpose, situational loneliness overcome and organisational issues create barriers to long-term implementation. Inter-care home connection through video calls to reduce feelings of loneliness in residents seems acceptable and a feasible, low cost model, especially during times of public crisis such as COVID-19.

Design of Effective Robotic Gaze-Based Social Cueing for Users in Task-Oriented Situations: How to Overcome In-Attentional Blindness?

Robotic eye-gaze-based cueing has been studied and proved to be effective, in controlled environments, in achieving social functions as humans gaze. However, its dynamic adaptability in various real interactions has not been explored in-depth. This paper addresses a case where a simplistic robotic gaze fails to achieve effective social cueing in human–robot communication, primarily due to in-attentional blindness (IB), and presents a method that enables the robot to deliver gaze-based social signals adequately. To understand the implications of IB and figure out ways to overcome any limitations from IB, which frequently arise in task-oriented situations, we designed a set of 1-on-1 communication experiments consisting of a robotic tutor and human learners participating in multiple-choice quiz sessions (task-oriented situation). Here, multimedia contents were utilized alongside the robot as visual stimuli competing for the human’s attention. We hypothesized that quiz scores would increase when humans successfully recognize the robot’s gaze-based cue signals hinting answers. We compared the impacts of two different cueing methods: oblique cueing (OC), where cues were straightforwardly provided regardless of whether participants were potentially experiencing IB or not, and leading cueing (LC), where cueing procedures were led through achieving eye contact and securing the participants’ attention before signaling the cue. By comparing participants’ test scores achieved by the control group with no cueing (NC) and two experimental groups of OC and LC, respectively, we found that there was a significant increase in test scores only when the LC method was utilized. This experiment illustrates the importance of proactively guiding a user’s attention through sophisticated interaction design in effectively attaining a user’s attention and successfully delivering cues. In future studies, we aim to evaluate different methods by which a social robot can intentionally shift a human’s attention, such as incorporating stimuli from various multi-modal human communication channels.

Perceptions and Suggestions of II year M.B.B.S. Students Regarding Updated Pathology Teaching Curriculum: An Analytic Study

Introduction: In most of the medical colleges of India, the knowledge regarding basic science subjects is taught mainly through didactic lectures, tutorials and practicals. And hence the system is more of teacher centered with less interaction or involvement from the students. There is a need to explore innovations, so as to sustain interest. Objectives: To introduce interactive teaching and assessment methods during lectures and examinations respectively and to elicit student’s perception about them. Materials and Method: A number of interactive methods were introduced in the pathology curriculum in a batch of 153 medical students of 2nd year M.B.B.S. Later the perceptions of the students were elicited regarding these sessions using a questionnaire based on Likert scale. Results: Validation of the scale indicated good internal consistency with Crohnbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.9. Majority (83%) of the students agreed or strongly agreed to like the interactive sessions. Similarly, 86% agreed or strongly agreed to like teamwork in group discussions and quiz sessions. Most popular interactive mode was MCQ’s followed by Cinemeducation. Most students were also of the view that interactivity during lectures keeps them active, more attentive in the class, makes the atmosphere more lively, also improved their communication skills, helps in retention of the topic, clearing doubts, improves attention span and hence results in better understanding of the subject. Conclusion: This project clearly proves that updated pathology curriculum is preferred by students. So, teacher should take a new role of facilitating the process of interactive learning rather than delivering elaborative lectures.

Medical Pharmacology Board Scores Increase With Flipped Classroom and Video Lectures

Medical Pharmacology, in the second year at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harlem, New York, beginning in Fall 2008, was offered as a didactic lecture and examination program using a syllabus with course expectations, topics, class schedule and learning objectives as a guide for students. Content was offered in class with PowerPoint presentations, 50 minutes at a time. Attendance varied between 20% and 60% of the class. COMLEX‐USA Level 1 discipline mean scores in pharmacology ranged from 462.22 to 506.95 as reported by NBOME in the period 2010 through 2012. The National Mean covering this period was 515.74. The First Pass rate averaged 82.82% against the National rate which averaged 89.69%In Fall 2012, the course content delivery and access was changed to video recordings of the lectures by faculty. Students accessed course content via a server which housed a library of course topics on video, still according to the syllabus. No classroom lectures were offered, but students were invited to participate in quiz and discussion sessions in the classroom, one hour per week per course. Classroom time was decreased to one‐third. Students now preview the videos and actively participate in the quiz sessions, often covering 2–3 topics in one hour. Discussion of topics among students is encouraged and often becomes very animated and dynamic. Students come to class prepared for quiz and discussion, receive minor credit for the quiz and leave aligned in their understanding of topics. Class attendance is typically 85% and may reach 100%. COMLEX‐USA Level 1 mean discipline scores in pharmacology have improved from 517.56 in 2013 to 600.02 in 2018 against an average National score in Pharmacology of 542.21 over the same period. The First Pass rate has increased from 87.29% in 2013 to a rate of 97.73% in 2018. The mean National First Pass rate for this period is 92.91%The faculty at this medical college are able to provide consistent and regularly improved content presentations via the video lectures while freeing time for scholarly activities. Students manage their study efficiently during time which is free of scheduled lectures and they achieve board scores in the top half of the national scale.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Student perception of peer teaching and learning in pathology: A qualitative analysis of modified seminars, fishbowls, and interactive classroom activities.

Peer-assisted teaching and learning (PTL) is being experimented in different medical universities worldwide. It is a learner-centered approach involving students through active learning strategies. To study the student perception of PTL in methods such as group-led seminars and fishbowls, in classroom through various interactive activities; compare and find out the student acceptability and efficacy of each of these methods in learning conceptual topics such as various types of anemia. Medical students of second-year professional course were subjected to PTL in classroom during allotted teaching hours for 10 successive sessions using group-led modified seminars, fishbowls, and different formality-level interactive activities such as street plays, prop sessions, quiz sessions, to make them understand the clinical features and presentation of different types of anemia through understanding of etio-pathogenesis. To ascertain the aspects that influenced learning, focus group discussions were conducted in small groups consisting of 14 students and one facilitator in each group. Qualitative thematic analysis was performed on transcripts of the audio recordings by authors. The emerging themes from qualitative analysis of transcripts were pertaining to teacher, student, and organization. We found motivation, interest, and involvement of peer teacher, student behavior and collaboration, contact time between students and facilitator, preparation time, coherence with other curricular activities, group size and composition, suitability of topic for the kind of activity, and availability of material for preparation as few sub-aspects affecting learning. For PTL to be effective, adequate transfer of knowledge through good peer teacher involvement, learner receptiveness, and adequate contact time is needed. Proper preparation with suitability of topics for the type of activity, alignment of seminars with other activities, and course coherence are prerequisites for the same.

The virtual university: digital tools for e-learning and remote learning are becoming an increasingly important tool for teaching at universities.

The virtual university: digital tools for e-learning and remote learning are becoming an increasingly important tool for teaching at universities.

The 3R Method Optimizes the Use of Student Response Systems in Physical Therapist Education

Background and Purpose. The use of student response systems (SRS) has steadily increased in higher education and has led to improved learning and retention, as well as increased student engagement, motivation, and enjoyment. The use of SRS in health professions education, especially at the graduate level, has been less well-documented, although similar positive outcomes have been reported. Traditional SRS quizzes are fully administered during in-class lectures or as stand-alone in-class assessments. This paper summarizes higher education SRS literature and describes an improved method for using SRS quizzes in physical therapist (PT) education.Case Description. The is a 3-step approach to administering SRS quizzes: recall, refine, and reveal. In the first step, students are given the SRS quiz questions in advance and instructed to answer questions outside of class using what they remember from previous readings and instructional sessions. They then consult their materials in the second step to correct those answers. The second step also occurs outside of class. Finally, in the third step, they use SRS to indicate their final answers in class, and compiled student responses and the correct answer are projected for the class to see. Guided discussion follows, in which students describe, clarify, and compare their bgic.Outcomes. PT student responses to this 3R Method of administering SRS quizzes have been extremely positive. Not a single negative student comment was received and many comments suggested that these quizzes significantly augmented student learning and examination preparation. Students even requested that these quizzes be used more often in the future.Discussion and Conclusion. This approach to SRS quizzes would be equally useful in physical therapist assistant and other health professions education programs. A larger prospective comparative trial is being designed that will further assess the value and student perceptions of SRS quizzes, specifically including the addition of the 3R Method.Key Words: Student response system, Health professions education, Scholarship of teaching and learning, Physical therapist education, Higher education.BACKGROUND AND PURPOSESeveral years ago, a few of our physical therapist professional program faculty began incorporating student response systems (SRS) into our classrooms. Our results were generally reflective of what had been published about this technology in higher education: students were highly engaged112 and their perceptions were very positive.1,2·1218 Multiple-choice SRS questions were used more and more regularly in a variety of classes, and quiz sessions expanded to include facilitated group discussion of response options and the logic behind them. The value of these discussions also emerged in SRS literature.5,6,15,16,1922Our use of SRS has continued to evolve, largely in response to the results of a formal mixed-methods inquiry conducted several years ago with our physical therapist students.23The method being described in this paper is the result of that evolution and combines the elements of SRS that were previously reported by our students as being most helpful in their learning with other elements designed to capitalize on additional learning theories. This method also has the advantage of being particularly efficient with classroom time. The purpose of this paper is to describe what my students and I believe has been a particularly effective way to implement SRS into physical therapist professional education.Student response systems- also known as clickers, audience response systems, and personal response systems- are handheld devices that enable individuals to transmit responses via radio -frequency or infrared technology to a receiver that is attached to a computer. When used in the classroom, the instructor projects each question and answer option from his or her classroom computer via an LCD projector, and then waits while each student transmits his or her answer selection to a receiver attached to the same computer. …

Recent medical graduates as facilitators in a PBL curriculum

scores 30 ± 3%; post-CD 72 ± 4%), but we frequently incorporate the songs into appropriate lectures (e.g. Alzheimer Blues in a lecture on antidementia drugs). In addition, they fit very well into revision quiz sessions: interspersing the songs between the rounds of a quiz makes it entertaining; more like a TV show rather than a dull revision session. In the months that the songs have been online, we have received positive responses from pharmacology teachers all over the world. These songs can be considered as light edutainment but we are gratified that students’ examination answers on the side-effects of beta-blocking drugs have improved since the advent of the Beta-blocker Blues :

Web-Based Agents for Reengineering Engineering Education

Agent technology has great potential to make WWW-based learning environments effective. This study describes four Web-based agents developed for reengineering a freshman chemistry laboratory education: 1) the “intelligent tutoring tool” that conducts on-line problem-solving coaching, 2) the “adaptive lecture guide” that provides navigation guidance sensitive to students' knowledge status, 3) the “student modeler” that assesses students' knowledge performance based on students' progress during on-line quiz sessions, 4) the expert-agent that stores the domain expertise. The advantages of this approach are twofold. First, these agents play constructive roles within student's Web-based learning environment by providing an individualized interaction that overwise would be a fairly dull learning environment. Second, the modular design of the learning environment using agents has great potential to be progressively scaled to support widely cooperative educational content development in the future.

The fundamental attribution error: An investigation of sensitivity to role‐conferred advantages in self‐presentation

It has been claimed that there is a general tendency for social perceivers to underestimate the importance of environmental influences upon behaviour, or to make the ‘fundamental attribution error’. This experiment sets out to test the validity of this claim by extending the study of Ross et al. (1977), which has been taken as a strong demonstration of the tendency. Four general knowledge quiz sessions, each involving a questioner and an answerer, were held and transcripts of the quizzes produced. Each transcript was then read by 14 students who subsequently rated the quiz participants in terms of general knowledge and of specific knowledge of 17 areas, given the information that questioners themselves composed their own questions. Results showed that on general knowledge questioners were rated significantly higher than their respective answerers, suggesting that observers do in fact neglect the environmental influences upon behaviour. However, as predicted, analysis of specific knowledge ratings showed that the questioners were seen as significantly superior to the answerers only on the areas of knowledge used in their quiz; for areas of knowledge not covered by quiz questions, mean ratings of questioners and answerers were almost identical. The implications of these findings for the existence of a general tendency to make the fundamental attribution error are discussed.