Student Opinions and Preferences Regarding Personal Response Systems in the Graduate Physical Therapy Classroom: A Mixed-Methods Inquiry

Abstract

Little investigation has been conducted on the use of Personal Response Systems (PRS) in either graduate-level courses or health professions education. Through anonymous participation in focus groups, graduate physical therapy students described specific aspects of PRS that they felt facilitated their learning, as well as aspects that hindered their learning. A Likert-type survey was constructed based on focus group outcomes and was offered to the entire population of physical therapy students at our institution. Results indicated that PRS was perceived to be useful for examination preparation, application of concepts, facilitation of discussion, and immediate feedback. Participants perceived cost and technical issues, including lack of faculty technical expertise, as problematic. Students exhibited a strong preference for ungraded in-class quizzes, followed by provision of these quizzes to students for later study. This unique mixed-method design maximized the use of online technology for obtaining both qualitative and quantitative outcomes.

Keywords

• Personal response systems
• Graduate Education
• Health Professions education
• Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)
• Student perceptions
• Higher education