Can "clickers" unstem the low tide in physics?

• Position: Your Life

Handheld electronic devices called clickers are helping college students learn physics, suggests a series of research studies at Ohio State University, Columbus. Individuals who use the devices to answer multiple-choice questions during lectures earn final examination scores that are around 10% higher--the equivalent of a full-letter grade--than those who do not. The clickers also appear to level the playing field between male and female students. In clicker classes, males and females do equally well. In traditional, nonclicker classes, boys outperform girls.

To Bill Reay, professor of physics, these results suggest that clickers potentially could encourage more women to pursue STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines. "The U.S. industrial sector has expressed an urgent need for more scientists and engineers to enter the workforce to maintain our technological edge in the future. We need to recruit more students--male and female--who otherwise might not study science and, it turns out, for women especially, clickers can be a valuable learning tool."

Around the country, clickers are used regularly to maintain student attention in huge lecture halls. At large universities, even relatively advanced science classes may contain hundreds of students. "A...