Abstract:

Higher education classrooms have long suffered from a lack of engagement and interactivity. As a result, students learning often suffers. Engaging students in large lecture halls is a challenging task that requires purposeful planning by instructors. This study investigated the learning effectiveness and engagement appeal of using exit tickets as a digital tool in education courses at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain). Exit tickets provide a classroom activity that challenges students with questions at the end of the class and encourages them to take stock of their learning. They require students to do some synthesis of the lecture’s content and emphasizes what each student is thinking. Exit tickets can provide valuable feedback to instructors about the class, allowing them to gauge what students have learned and if additional practice is needed. Students submit their “digital exit tickets” via Socrative -a Student Response System- or “paper exit tickets” before leaving the class. A group of 169 freshmen college students participated in this study. These students included prospective early childhood and elementary school teachers. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to inquire into students’ perceptions on the exit tickets experience, and data collected was examined. As the data reveal, exit tickets help students to be actively engaged in the learning process and encourage student connections to content, self-reflection, and a purpose for future learning, enhancing their college learning experience. Results also indicate that exit tickets provide evidence of mastered content and students’ challenges, improve students’ behavior and academic achievement, and have the most positive impact on students learning outcomes.