Abstract:

This meta-analysis examines the effects of integrating Peer Instruction (PI) with Audience Response Systems (ARS) in educational settings. Peer Instruction is a structured active-learning method in which students respond individually to conceptual questions, discuss their reasoning with peers, and receive immediate feedback. ARS technologies are commonly used to implement PI because they automate response collection, increase student participation, and allow instructors to provide real-time corrective feedback. A comprehensive literature search identified 14 publications, drawn from a larger pool of 153 experimental ARS studies with learning outcomes and traditional-instruction control groups, that explicitly combined PI with ARS. These studies contributed a total of 17 effect sizes to the meta-analysis. The overall results indicate that ARS-supported PI yields a statistically significant positive effect on learning relative to traditional instruction (g+ = 0.44, k = 17, 95% CI [0.13, 0.69]). However, substantial heterogeneity was observed, as reflected in a wide prediction interval (–0.63 to 1.51). Moderator analyses revealed that PI with ARS significantly improves comprehension outcomes (g+ = 0.57, k = 12), whereas effects on knowledge transfer were not statistically significant (g+ = 0.15, k = 5). No disciplinary differences were found: effect sizes were comparable in the social sciences and humanities (g+ = 0.47, k = 9) and STEM disciplines (g+ = 0.41, k = 8). Additional moderators, including publication year, number of instructional sessions, educational level (school vs. college), and publication type (doctoral thesis vs. journal article), were not statistically significant. Overall, these findings support PI as an effective instructional approach when implemented with ARS. Nevertheless, the absence of significant effects on transfer outcomes suggests that PI, as typically implemented, may primarily strengthen conceptual understanding and reduce misconceptions rather than enhance problem-solving or knowledge application.

Keywords:

Audience-response systems, peer instruction, meta-analysis, learning.