EVALUATION OF AN ICT-BASED TOOL INTERVENTION TO COMPLEMENT THEORY CLASSES IN APPLIED STATISTICS

Introduction:
Evaluation of a pedagogic intervention is a critical phase that enables to perform a systematic appraisal of the quality of teaching methodologies and learning, driving changes and improvements in the different procedures performed in class. Our aim was to evaluate the students’ satisfaction with an ITC-based interactive tool (Kahoot!) after an intervention during a whole semester during the course of the classes of statistics in the Degree of Physiotherapy.

Methods:
Thirty-seven students of the first year Degree in Physiotherapy were included. We used a questionnaire (8 items), which was administered using Kahoot! by the end of the semester in the subject “Applied Statistics in Health Sciences” in first-year Physiotherapy Degree students. The questionnaire evaluated the satisfaction (3 items), usability (3 items) and utility (2 items) of the ITC-based tool and the intervention. The students used their mobile devices to access Kahoot! and they answered binary questions (yes/no).

Results:
With respect to satisfaction, 96.8% of the students evaluated positively the use of ICT applications for learning in the subject, 92.1% liked the use of activities with immediate response and feedback, and 71.4% agreed that the use of Kahoot! improved their attention and motivation for the subject. Regarding usability, 95.2% thought the tool was intuitive and easy to use, 55.6% never used before a similar activity in class, and 95.2% usually had a mobile device with internet access in class. Lastly, on the utility of Kahoot! as a complement for theory conferences, 85.7% agreed that Kahoot! helped them to improve their knowledge on the subject and 93.7% found the use of IT-based applications can help them improve the assimilation of contents.

Conclusion:
Collectively, the descriptive analysis of the satisfaction questionnaire showed that:
1) students evaluated positively the inclusion of ICT-based tools in the classroom, in this case, one of immediate response and feedback, 2) the tool was intuitive and easy to use, allowing them to improve knowledge about the contents of the subject and favouring the motivation towards learning, 3) most people had mobile devices for the use of the tool, 4) the implementation of this type of complementary methodologies in the teaching-learning process is still limited among teachers in Higher Education.