C Clicker Interventions: Promoting Student Activity and Feedback at University Lectures Kjetil Egelandsdal and Rune Johan Krumsvik University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Synonyms Audience response systems; Digital assessment for learning; Digital formative assessment; Response technology; Student response system Clicker Interventions: Promoting Student Activity and Feedback at University Lectures “(...) Context is not always everything, but it colors everything” (Pajares 2005, p. 342), and in academia, the frames and contexts for teaching activities set much of the premise for how we carry out our teaching activities. What is realistic to do in small student groups can be completely unrealistic to do in large student classes. Therefore, Cleveland (2002) and Denker (2013) distinguish among “small” class- rooms (30 students or fewer), “medium” classrooms (40 to 100 students), “large” classrooms (100 to 150 students), and “mega” classrooms (200 students or more). In higher education, medium or large lectures often involve less dialogue and communication between students and teachers, and several studies have found that traditional lecturing in such lectures is ineffective in promoting student learning (Deslauriers et al. 2011). Student response systems (SRSs, or “clickers”) are digital tools that can be used to increase student activity in such large lecture settings. This entry will examine how this educa- tional technology influences “how teachers teach and students learn” in higher education today. Lecturing is the most traditional form of teach- ing at universities and is still widely used, both in the everyday teaching of university students and on big occasions, when distinguished professors are invited to give guest lectures. There is an interest in oral presentation even outside the university walls, as illustrated by the popularity of TED talks, per- sonal narratives, public lectures, and even stand-up comedy. In recent years, however, there has been increasing criticism of lectures in higher education as an outdated and ineffective method of teaching. This criticism is rooted in the increasing emphasis on student activity and student learning in educa- tion, together with an increase in students who are used to being actively included in instruction. Empirical studies support this criticism by showing that student activity and feedback promote student learning (Black and Wiliam 1998; Evans 2013; Hattie and Timperley 2007; Prince 2004) and that students struggle to maintain their attention during © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 A. Tatnall (ed.), Encyclopedia of Education and Information Technologies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60013-0_189-2