Abstract

Student response systems collect answers from students to questions posed in a class interactively. Students usually use smart mobile phones to respond to an instructor’s questions and the statistics of their responses can be shown to the whole class immediately afterward for discussion and explanation. There are numerous advantages to such a kind of system, including engaging students, increasing their attention, understanding their progress and peer instruction. This article discusses the proper ways of using a student response system for business education with a number of question examples for illustration. In particular, it discusses the results of two surveys. The first survey was performed online to collect 135 students’ attitudes to a student response system implemented in a business subject at a university. The second survey was performed online to measure and compare interaction and learning motivation in two classes. In one class with 135 students (i.e., the same class involved in the first survey mentioned above), the student response system was used in the whole semester while in another class with 172 students, the system was not used. According to the survey results, students found the system useful in teaching and learning activities and they had positive attitudes towards most features of the system. In addition, learning motivation and interaction between students and teachers can be improved. At the end of the article, a number of suggestions are provided to solve the problems when instructors use a student response system for the first time.