Adding insight in educational lecture environments with ARS : A post-presentation analysis using an interactive visualization tool

Abstract: Feedback plays an important role in evaluating and developing courses in higher education. Due to inefficient factors, the feedback cycle does not meet its full potential and can therefore be counterproductive. Current evaluation methods typically demand much effort from both students and teachers, when asking for feedback at the end of the course and analyzing the results. Lack of engagement can thus be observed in both parties. Moreover, we can see an increasing trend of ARS used in educational settings, to improve learning quality and enhance the relationship between the presenter and audience. This study’s aim was to make the feedback process more efficient and to explore how to provide insight in lecture quality for continuous course development. To fully understand the target user, a pre-study was conducted to identify design requirements and to investigate which areas to evaluate during the courses and why. The interview sessions resulted in four main dimensions to evaluate; Meaningfulness, comprehension, knowledge and attitude. Based on these dimensions, a feedback tool was developed to gather the feedback data from students in two different cohorts. The tool was developed in a survey format, with the help of an existing ARS. The feedback was then collected after two university lectures during two courses. To explore the potential of providing useful insight to the lecturer, and to facilitate the analytical step of the process, an interactive visualization tool was prototyped to display the data. The visualization tool was evaluated, both in terms of usability and its overall concept, with a total of eight lecturers, two of which were lecturers in the courses used to gather the feedback data. Even though the results show that it might be difficult to draw a single conclusion of the tools’ usability, the users found the concept interesting and were positive towards the idea. The perception of the tool’s intended use varied and is discussed along with future development.