Abstract:

Assessment is a key component of teaching procedures. Regular assessing tasks help students to learn. It also allows them perceive how they did at the class. Doing daily assessing tasks may have a positive impact on the teacher's performance as it helps to know whether the students understood the lesson or not. Different types of assessment seem to encourage deep or surface approaches to learning. This is why the over-use of conventional assessment procedures, such as essay question exams, may lead to negative impact on studying learning. Instead of that, new tools are required to be applied in the classroom in order to enable and motivate students, and also to fasten and shorten the assessing process. New mobile applications, such as Plickers, allow teachers to do such fast and convenient assessment during their lessons since real-time data from responses, student participation and data tracking are fast collected. This paper outlines a research project using mobile learning technology conducted at Knights of Knowledge International Schools (KKIS), based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In order to explore the feasibility of using mobile technologies in science students' assessment, the study was performed to cover all levels of education, from grade one to nine. Teachers were asked to apply Plickers tool in formative assessment, import the analyzed data from the application, as well as their own feedback. Students were also asked by a designed survey to determine their opinions and preferences. The study demonstrates a measurable improvement in student performance through the use of formative assessment using the Plickers application. These findings have been interpreted to determine the effect of Plickers on students' performance. The students reported a higher level of feedback on assessment during this placement, indicating that KKIS students preferred the friendly and enjoyable use of the Plickers to the paper based format, which became worn overtime. Positive feedback was provided by both teachers and students regarding the use of Plickers. It can be clearly seen that applying this mobile tool is efficient and might has a paramount and long-lasting effect on teachers' performance and students learning.Moreover, introducing this simple mobile technology into the class assessment will not require a significant shift in culture neither and a significant level of training and support.

Keywords:

Assessment, mobile applications, student learning.