Teaching of Psychology, 37: 135140, 2010

C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Copyright

ISSN: 0098-6283 print / 1532-8023 online
DOI: 10.1080/00986281003626631

TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHING

Using Student Response Systems (Clickers)
to Combat Conformity and Shyness
Jeffrey R. Stowell, Terrah Oldham, and Dan Bennett
Eastern Illinois University
This study addressed how trait levels of classroom shyness can influence conformity when students answer opinion questions in different ways. We recruited 128 introductory psychology students to indicate their opinion on
50 controversial questions by raising their hand or anonymously pressing a button on a keypad (clicker). Compared to hand-raising, keypad responses had greater variability, suggesting that students were less likely to conform to the groups opinion. Students who typically experience shame and anxiety in class did not conform any
more than other students did, but they felt more uncomfortable raising their hands and indicated a stronger preference for using keypads when answering controversial
questions.
Electronic student response systems (SRS) use
keypads, or clickers, to efficiently record and display
students answers to questions that can be used for
concept checks, quizzes, opinion polls, and more
(Caldwell, 2007). By pressing a button on a keypad,
students anonymously send their response to a receiver
attached to a computer that displays a histogram of
the students responses. A growing body of literature
on the use of SRS proclaims benefits of greater
participation and increased emotional engagement
during lecture (Stowell & Nelson, 2007), and possible
benefits to student learning (Morling, McAuliffe,
Cohen, & DiLorenzo, 2008; Poirier & Feldman,
2007).
In a comprehensive study using observational and
self-report methods, Howard, Short, and Clark (1996)
suggested that a number of factors contribute to the
Vol. 37, No. 2, 2010

amount of participation in the classroom. The strongest

predictor of greater classroom participation was being a nontraditional student (older than age 24), but
the researchers also found that men participated more
than women, and there was less participation in larger
classes. Overall, the majority of students did not participate in class (66%), and of those who did, about
half of them accounted for 89% of all students comments. Furthermore, among the most frequent reasons
provided by students for not participating in class was
the possibility that they would appear unintelligent to
other students (Howard et al., 1996). Results from a
qualitative study on students participation in discussions of controversial topics confirm that students are
reluctant to openly express their diverse views because
of perceived negative reactions from their peers, including being stereotyped and suffering confrontation
(Lusk & Weinberg, 1994). Clearly, there is room for
improvement in getting the silent majority to participate in class, especially when discussing controversial
topics.
Shyness can also contribute to the lack of students
classroom participation, and this could have consequences on their academic performance. For example,
young children who were identified as shy by their
teachers performed more poorly overall on a vocabulary test than did nonshy students. However, these
differences disappeared when shy students took their
written exams in a group setting that conferred greater
anonymity when compared to taking a test alone
in the presence of a teacher (Crozier & Hostettler,
2003).
135

One common touted advantage of keypads is that

students who are too anxious or shy to verbalize during
class might feel more comfortable using keypads to respond, by virtue of the keypads anonomynity (Ewing,
2006). Although most students in one study agreed that
the anonymity of using keypads made them less likely to
be embarrassed in class (Magyar-Moe, Becker, Burek,
McDougal, & McKell, 2008), ironically, another study
found shy students, more than nonshy students, felt
that using keypads made the classroom environment
less personal and did not allow expression of opinions
(Lee & Bainum, 2006). In another study, students who
liked to hear other students opinions, although being
hesitant to express their own opinion, did not rate the
perceived helpfulness of the keypads any higher than
nonreluctant students (Graham, Tripp, Seawright, &
Joeckel, 2007).
In a previous study, when students used keypads to
respond to in-class review questions, they were more
likely to respond and, more important, were more
honest in their responding than students in a handraising comparison group (Stowell & Nelson, 2007).
Students in the hand-raising group appeared to be influenced by the number of other students raising their
hands to answer. However, the researchers did not include a measure of shyness to learn if it was related
to participation or conformity (Stowell & Nelson).
Thus, to date, there are no published studies to support the idea that shy students prefer using SRS any
more than other students do or that their responses
differ from other less shy students responses, particularly when asked about their opinions on controversial
topics.
This study addressed how trait levels of classroomspecific shyness might influence conformity when answering opinion questions. Based on the knowledge
of social conformity in group settings (Asch, 1951),
we anticipated that responses rendered by traditional
hand-raising would be less variable than keypad responses, indicating greater conformity to the majoritys opinion. Second, we expected this difference
to be greater for shy students, who might be more
likely to conform (Mehrabian & Stefl, 1995). Third,
we hypothesized that shy students would be more
likely to favor the use of keypads over hand-raising
because keypads provide greater anonymity. Finally,
we anticipated that shy students would experience
greater negative mood after responding publicly to
controversial questions than students low in classroom shyness, consistent with findings that shyness and
negative mood were positively correlated (Cowden,
2005).
136

Method
Participants
From our departments introductory psychology research pool, we recruited 128 participants who participated in exchange for research participation credit to
fulfill a course requirement. The majority of participants, 110 (86%), were first-year students or sophomores and 84 (66%) were women. The distribution
of race or ethic background was 93 (75%) White, 23
(18%) African American, 7 (4%) Latino/Hispanic, 4
(3%) other, and 1 (1%) Asian American. Depending
on the day of participation, sample sizes were in the
range of 7 to 10, 20, or 40 to 43 per group, resulting
in class sizes nominally categorized as 10, 20, and 40
students.
Instruments
Classroom shyness. The Academic Emotions
Questionnaire (AEQ; Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, & Perry,
2002) measures various emotions in academic settings
such as a lecture or examination. The AEQ has no designated shyness subscale, but two of the subscale constructs, anxiety and shame, overlap significantly with
shyness (Harder, Rockart, & Cutler, 1993; Henderson, 2002). We chose 14 items from the AEQ that
ask about anxiety (e.g., I get scared that I might say
something wrong, so Id rather not say anything) and
shame (e.g., When I say anything in class I feel like
I am making a fool of myself) typically experienced
in a regular classroom lecture. The sum of these two
subscales represented classroom shyness, which had a
Cronbach alpha of .92. In contrast to shyness, we also
selected four AEQ items that measured classroom enjoyment (I enjoy being in class), = .78. Participants
responded to all AEQ items on a Likert scale from 1
(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
Controversial statements. We used 50 controversial statements related to psychology taken from
several texts in the Taking Sides Series (McGraw-Hill)
and from our own design. Participants indicated the extent to which they agreed with the controversial statement on a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly
disagree). Sample statements include People who are
mentally ill should not be allowed to purchase guns,
Sexual orientation is not a choice, and Exposure
to media violence promotes aggressive behavior. We
used test bank software (ExamView 5.1) to randomize
Teaching of Psychology

the presentation order of the questions and then imported the questions into our SRS software program
(TurningPointTM ).

opinion questions, participants completed the mood

survey again, followed by a demographic survey.
Statistical Analyses

Mood. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) contains 20 items that measure positive and negative mood (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen,
1988). For each item, participants were asked, Indicate to what extent you feel this way right now, that
is, at the present moment on a Likert scale from 1
(very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). We calculated positive and negative mood by summing the
item responses for each 10-item subscale at each time
point. The positive and negative subscales had alphas
exceeding .83 and .76, respectively.
Procedure
On participants arrival in a classroom lecture hall,
we randomly assigned them to a seat, with each seat
having a designated keypad number and a group assignment that alternated every other seat. Thus, the groups
were interspersed among each other in the seating arrangement. We videotaped the experiment so we could
record individual hand-raising responses later without
interrupting the experiment.
On the consent form, we stated that participants
would be asked to use keypads and hand-raising to
answer a total of 50 controversial questions. After providing informed consent, participants completed the
mood and classroom emotion surveys. We provided instruction on using the keypads and hand-raising techniques, and then began with two practice questions to
familiarize participants with the procedure. Next, the
two groups took turns responding to each of the 50
controversial questions displayed on a large screen at
the front of the classroom by using their keypads or by
raising their hands at the appropriate time.
For each controversial statement, we waited 15 to
20 sec for the group using keypads to respond, and
then asked the second group to indicate their opinion
by raising their hand when we read the response
choice that matched their opinion. We did not show
the histogram of the keypad responses on the screen at
any time, to prevent students keypad responses from
influencing the hand-raising groups responses. On
every subsequent question, the two groups switched
methods of responding (i.e., from keypads to handraising or vice versa). Thus, participants answered 25
questions in each manner to allow for within-subjects
comparisons. After responding to the controversial
Vol. 37, No. 2, 2010

By definition, conformity occurs when group responses are similar to one another. Thus, greater deviation from a groups central tendency of scores would
indicate less conformity. We tested potential differences between the variability of opinions obtained
from hand-raising with the variability obtained by keypad responding by calculating the median absolute deviation (MAD) for each participants response to a
question. We calculated this measure of variability by
finding the absolute value of the difference between
the individuals response and the groups median response on each question. We chose the median over
other measures of central tendency because it is less
susceptible to extreme scores and we chose the absolute value because the direction in which the scores
deviated from the median was not important in this
study.
On all days of testing except the first day, we were
able to track individuals keypad responses and perform repeated measures analyses, comparing their mean
hand-raising MADs to their mean keypad MADs. Because of a technical problem on the first day of the study
(n = 40), we could not match our keypad responses
with hand-raising responses so we resorted to treating
this days data as if we had collected them from two independent samples. Finally, we correlated participants
trait levels of classroom emotions with other self-report
measures, including demographic characteristics.

Results
On the first day of the study, we found significantly
greater variability in the keypad responses (M SD;
0.75 0.20) than the hand-raising responses (0.53
0.18), F (1, 78) = 28.0, p < .001, 2p = .26. In a general
linear model repeated measures analysis of data from
the other days, we confirmed this finding in all class
sizes that we tested (see Table 1). Group size, sex, race,
age, and shyness did not interact significantly with the
method of responding ( ps > .09, 2p s < .06, suggesting that the difference in variability between keypads
and hand-raising methods was comparable across group
size, demographic factors, and shyness. To determine if
this difference occurred only because we asked a large
number of controversial questions, we examined the
137

Table 1.

Average Deviation From the Median for Keypad and Hand-Raising

Items.

Nominal Class Size

10 students
20 students
40 students
Overall

Keypad MADs

Hand MADs

F, p Value

Partial 2

0.68 0.15
0.81 0.17
0.87 0.25
0.80 0.23

0.56 0.19
0.54 0.14
0.73 0.23
0.64 0.22

F (1, 24) = 5.62, p = .026

F (1, 19) = 46.24, p < .001
F (1, 42) = 13.13, p = .001
F (1, 87) = 39.73, p < .001

0.19
0.71
0.24
0.31

N ote. MADs = median absolute deviations.

potential differences in variability after participants

had answered just one question using each response
method. The findings were similar, with greater variability in keypad responses than hand-raising, F (1, 85)
= 6.38, p = .01, 2p = .07.
As expected, AEQ subscales of shame and anxiety
were highly correlated, r = .79, p < .001, N = 128.
The combined shame and anxiety score (shyness)
was significantly associated with increased feelings of
uncomfortableness when using hand-raising to answer
controversial questions and a stronger preference for
using keypads over hand-raising (see Table 2). Mean
levels of negative mood after the experimental session
did not change from baseline, and the interaction
between shyness and time was not significant either,
ps > .17. Thus, the correlations between shyness and
negative mood at the beginning and end of the session
were similar (r = .32, r = .26, respectively, ps < .01).
In contrast, positive mood declined over time, F (1,
126) = 14.4, p < .001, 2p = .10, and the interaction
between time and shyness was significant, F (1, 126)
= 8.2, p < .01, 2p = .06. Thus, shyness correlated significantly with positive mood at the end (r = .29, p <
.01), but not the beginning (r = .14, ns) of the session.

Table 2.

On average, women reported a higher level of shyness than men (4.63 1.74 vs. 3.80 1.17), F (1, 126)
= 8.18, p < .01, 2p = .06, and indicated a greater
preference for using keypads to answer controversial
questions (3.12 0.84 vs. 2.64 0.81), F (1, 126)
= 9.74, p < .01, 2p = .07. As mentioned earlier, the
difference in variability between hand-raising and keypad responses did not interact with sex, but there was a
main effect for sex across method of responding. Overall, womens responses (0.63 0.20) deviated less from
the group median than mens responses (0.72 0.21),
F (1, 86) = 4.02, p < .05, 2p = .05. Increased age was
correlated with decreased preference for keypads (r =
.23, p < .01, N = 128), but otherwise age and race
were not significantly related to any of our dependent
measures.

Discussion
Previous research demonstrated that students were
likely to conform to the majority of the class when using
hand-raising to respond to multiple-choice knowledge
questions (Stowell & Nelson, 2007). In this study, we

Correlations of Classroom Emotions, Keypad Survey Items, and Mood

1. Classroom enjoyment
2. Classroom shyness
3. Amount of typical participation in class
4. Raising my hand to express my opinion made me feel
uncomfortable
5. Instructors should use keypads when asking questions of
a controversial nature
6. I preferred keypads to hand-raising
7. Total negative mood
8. Total positive mood

.12

.26
.17

.02
.33
.13

.01
.21
.05
.06

.08
.25
.02
.20

.02
.26
.18
.29

.39
.25
.19
.11

.60

.16

.18

.21

.17
.32

N ote. Total negative mood and total positive mood represent the sum of the respective mood scores across Time 1 and
Time 2.

p < .05. p < .01.

138

Teaching of Psychology

extended this finding to include measurable changes in

behavior when students use keypads to answer opinion
questions. Responding with keypads produced greater
variability of group opinion, suggesting that students
were less likely to conform to the groups median opinion. This was true for groups ranging in size from 10
to 40, which counters a common criticism that keypads are only helpful in large classes. Indeed, in Bonds
(2005) meta-analysis of variations of Aschs (1951)
classic conformity study, he found that conformity increases dramatically with as few as three other influential sources, after which further increases in the number of sources have a diminished added effect. None of
the theoretical models of conformity predict a point at
which conformity would decrease (Bond), suggesting
conformity might be even greater in very large classes
(e.g., 200 students). In our study, class size did not significantly interact with the method of responding, but
we did not collect data from classes with more than 50
students, mainly because of the logistics of videotaping
and recording hand-raising responses to 50 questions.
One might argue that answering 50 controversial
questions is not representative of what occurs in the
classroom, and rightfully so. We chose a large number
of questions to avoid making our findings dependent
on any specific set of questions. However, our withinsubjects analysis of just the first two questions revealed
a significant difference in the variability of responding,
suggesting that these differences are likely to occur
when any number of controversial questions are asked
in class.
We found that students who typically experience
shame and anxiety in class felt more uncomfortable
raising their hands and would prefer to use keypads
to answer controversial questions. We also found that
greater classroom shyness was associated with greater
negative mood before and after the experiment. The
consent form notified participants they would be asked
to use hand-raising to answer controversial questions,
and the anticipation factor might have accounted for
the higher level of negative mood among shy students
prior to the start of the experiment. The correlation
between shyness and positive mood at the end of the
experiment could be due to increased arousal, which
overlaps with some of the positive mood items (e.g.,
attentive and active).
Similar to other personality traits, shyness is susceptible to situational influences. For example, shy
adults did not differ from nonshy adults on linguistics measures when communicating in a computerized
chat discussion without a webcam, but shy adults were
less likely to self-disclose in the presence of a weVol. 37, No. 2, 2010

bcam (Brunet & Schmidt, 2008). In another study,

an ambiguous opposite-sex verbal interaction affected
shy students behavior more than giving a structured
speech (Pilkonis, 1977). It is possible that other researchers have not found significant differences in keypad preferences of shy students because of their reliance
on general measures of shyness that might fail to take
into account the specific shyness behaviors that occur
in the classroom. For example, general measures of shyness focus more on social interactions that would normally occur outside of the classroom, such as attending
a party (Cheek & Buss, 1981), which might be considerably different than interactions within a classroom
environment. Thus, general measures of shyness might
not be as sensitive as the AEQ in detecting shyness
differences in the classroom. As mentioned previously,
Graham et al. (2007) did not find significant differences
between reluctant and nonreluctant students ratings
of how helpful the keypads were in promoting participation. Although Graham et al. asked a few questions
related to classroom shyness, they did not ask students
if they preferred using keypads over other traditional
methods. More research is needed to determine if the
potential link between shyness and keypad preferences
is a reliable one.
Our measure of shyness correlated with student preferences for using keypads and increased negative emotion experienced in the classroom, but did not relate
to the amount of conformity. Although one study revealed a moderate positive relationship between shyness and conformity (Mehrabian & Stefl, 1995), we
found a nonsignificant correlation between shyness and
the amount of variability in hand-raising responses
(r = .03), suggesting that shyness and conformity in
the classroom were not directly related. Thus, shy students preferences for keypads were more closely tied to
their emotional reactions than their actual behavior,
suggesting that shy and nonshy students are influenced
equally by conformity, but shy students feel worse about
their experience. These findings might be analogous
to those of Pilkonis (1977), who found that shy and
nonshy students performed equally well in a structured
speaking task, but shy students reported greater negative mood after the task.
In conclusion, using keypads to answer controversial questions reduced conformity in the classroom, revealing a greater diversity of students opinions. The
ability of SRS to make extreme opinions more visible to others in the classroom might lead to greater
or more thoughtful subsequent discussion, but further
research is needed to test this hypothesis. Even though
women participants and shy students preferred using
139

keypads more than their respective comparison groups,

their levels of conformity were not significantly different, suggesting that conformity affected these groups
of students equally. Future researchers could uncover
the factors that account for individual differences in
classroom conformity and how they relate to classroom
participation.

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Notes
1. The authors thank Tyson Holder and Lindsay Nash for
assistance with the coding of the videotapes and Derek
Bruff for reviewing an earlier draft of the article.
2. Send correspondence to Jeffrey R. Stowell, Department
of Psychology, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL
61920; e-mail: jrstowell@eiu.edu.

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