Are time based quiz questions for higher learning?

Introduction

Over the course of the semester, I committed a student athlete based study located in the

Coastal Carolina athletic department on student athletes. The origin of the study is based on time

based learning in students and whether that helps commit key information to memory or if it

helped more with sight recognition. This would imply that over time if it was more productive

for sight recognition, that it would imply that overtime it would not be as useful in the field of

study. This means that it would be great for studying for immediate test over a unit but not as

useful in terms of using to study to prepare for a cumulative test such as a final.

This study was done by using the game program Kahoot and using the data from two

collective groups of athletes, males and females, over time in the department. Collecting the

results of a custom Kahoot designed with various information in mind to be unbiased to a

particular field of study to get the best results possible. Getting the results of this study will help

us to determine and define the benefits to timed based quizzes and study techniques for long or

short term and if they are beneficial to students of higher learning.

Review of literature

Once I started looking through scholarly articles related to studying and time based

learning I noticed a common them amongst many of the writings. Their findings were more of a

psychological approach. As Dr. Kristi Lonka found in her study and reported in her article

“Studying in higher education: students' approaches to learning, self-regulation, and cognitive

strategies” , she mentions how a student of higher learning studies based on how they

comprehend information and how this can change based on the particular process in which they

choose to code particular information. She states that, “ … aspects of successful and

problematic studying in terms of three different research traditions: students' approaches to

Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 2

learning, self-regulated learning and cognitive strategies. These frameworks have been widely

applied when explaining university student learning.” (Lonka, 2006). Within this article we were

able to see what can help educators determine the proper way to present students of this caliber

with a way to process the information that they are presented with. Depending on the individual

they can code thigs in their mind differently almost like putting each piece of information in

separate mental cabinet for storage and recall on a later date. According to Dr. Lonka

information storage is completely based on how a person feels about the information.

Information can be assigned based on a person’s self-regulated learning process (Lonka, 2006).

This means for my study that determining my whether a person codes my information from

Kahoot for long term or short term is based on their subconscious and how they take in regular

information not just how they take in academic information.

Another article “ Patterns in Student Learning: Relationships Between Learning

Strategies, Conceptions of Learning, and Learning Orientations” goes mor in to depth on the

aspects of the learning patterns and learning strategies which plays a major role in the

information and data collected in my study. This study done by Dr. Vermunt, a specialist in

education psychology, shows exactly how a college student breaks down information into

recognizable parts so that they are recognizable to useable at a later date (Vermunt., 2005). This

speaks more to a use of sight recognition at first which doesn’t help the long term effects of

Kahoot in my study but Dr.Vermunt goes on to explain that, “Cognitive processing activities are

those thinking activities that students use to process subject matter. They directly lead to learning

outcomes in terms of knowledge, understanding, skill, etc. Typical examples of these activities

are looking for relations among parts of the subject matter, selecting main points, thinking of

examples, and looking for application.” This speaks vastly to the aspect of learning that is
Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 3

implied when using Kahoot. Selecting main points to focus on is one of Kahoot’s key features.

Being able to select key words, terms, problems, or even topics is the foundations of Kahoot. The

main feature of the website is focus on singular category of information and study it in a form of

quick quizzes in flash card form. This feeds right into what Dr.Vermunt is referring too. He goes

on to say, “ Affective activities involve emotions that arise during learning and lead to affective

states that may positively, neutrally, or negatively influence the progress of a learning process.

Examples are activities like motivating one- self, attributing learning outcomes to causal factors,

attaching subjective appraisals to learning tasks, and mastering blocking emotions… Regulation

activities steer the cognitive and affective activities and, therefore, indirectly lead to learning

outcomes.” (Vermunt., 2005).An activity based learning module like Kahoot is on that is based

in a competitive nature which can bring out the emotion needed to be considered self-motivating

to the point that it will trigger the learning process that is being hinted at.

Another prime factor in my study is how the group being utilized is athletes and the

difference in these students for students without athletic responsibility and obligation to their

particular universities. In “An Action Research Approach to Supporting Elite Student-Athletes in

Higher Education” You can get a feel for just how much being a student- athlete taxes the mind a

learning habits in an higher education environment. In the article, Jim McKenna goes into detail

of how being an athlete impacts the learning on a college campus. Its stated that, “ According to

their achievements, these student-athlete participants were ‘elite’ in both academic and sporting

terms.” (Jim Mckenna, 2006). He also goes on to talk about how the athlete is very

misunderstood in the world of academia and that is how they typical run into issues. According

to Mckenna, Athletes thought process reacts differently to sports than books yet are elite in both

their separate ways (Jim Mckenna, 2006).

Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 4

METHODS & ANALYSIS

In my study in particular, used the platform and analytical tools of Kahoot to help

statistically and formally represents my findings. This study consisted of pre and posttest both

administer with Kahoot with a survey given in between periods of examination. The pre-test was

a series of four 10 question exams that were graded on Kahoot’s time based scale that ads points

for quickness and consistent right answers. The 4 quizzes were over the categories of geography,

multiplication, definitions, and historical figures/times. These for category’s resemble the four

main categories that you would learn in general education. It was designed this way so that one

specific category didn’t feed into one major and that every student dabble in one of their stronger

and weaker subjects.

The pool of athletes was 40 deep, split into 20 boys and 20 girls. To further diversify the

study I split those groups into different sports. For the boys it consisted of 5 football players, 5

track athletes, 5 golfers, and 5 basketball players. For girls there was 5 lacrosse players, 5

volleyball players, 5 softball players, and 5 of the women’s basketball players. Diversifying the

sports keeps the study more even overtime as I found as some sports are better at some academic

categories than others. This helped keep my data more valid and reliable as the testing went on.

The composite scores from the pretest showed great numbers. I had it scaled so that the

maximum amount of point that you could achieve was 10,000 points a test, meaning for the pre-

test the most collective amount of points that you would be able to receive would be 40,000. The

boys averaged a composite score of 24,472. While gaining this score they showed a breakdown

of having good focus on the math and geography, getting 65% of questions in those categories

correct but lacking in the definitions department heavy only getting 30% of the definitions to
Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 5

correspond to their correct words. The girls on the other hand were just above the boys getting

26, 332 as their composite average score and excelling of areas of the definitions and the math

getting a staggering 70% of both but performing poorly in the history department only getting

around 20% of those questions correct.

The next step in the study was to conduct a survey so I could pull information on how

clear the quiz questions were and if the students thought it was a good representation of that

particular area of study. I then took the feedback from the survey to determine which questions I

would then pull to compile a master key that I would then use to give my final Kahoot test to see

if the scores would resemble sight or long term. I took the most missed but approved questions

on the firts four quizzes to make my post-test. What was unique about this study was that the

pre-test also doubled as the studying done by the students as I was testing both sight recognition

and memory.

After a month’s time, the post test was administered to both groups with a twist in the

grading. I went in the Kahoot grading scale and gave more time to answer the question and gave

a bigger bonus on consecutive answers to make up for the gap of answering the question quickly.

That way a student wasn’t necessarily punished for getting right answer and just taking a little

longer, but the students were not aware of this. The results showed that Student who answered

quicker typically scored lower on the final test because they were relying on sight recognition to

carry them through and often missed the bonus of getting the question consecutively. The boys

final score averaged 6,825 points while the average score for the girls was 7,247. The girls also

took an extra total of 5minutes on average to complete the last exam. This just goes to show that

while giving out the Kahoot platform that over time the student can build a long term memory of
Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 6

information and not have to rely on sight recognition to succeed. This shows that Kahoot is a

valuable source to study from to get long term results.

Findings

What this study has showed me is that using a form of competitive studying to help

activate the mind and in a sense trick it into learning information is a good way to go when it

comes to studying. Using timed quizzes is advanced and more progressive way of using

flashcards. It also showed how repetitions of a particular topic can get you better results over

time and that studying doesn’t always have to been in a formal format. What I can tell from this

is that in future class rooms the use of competitive studying is the key to help activate the correct

learning process for each individual.

Everyone, male and female process information at their own specific react but the

stimulus of time and competition can definitely help trigger the mental process of studying and

learning information. The one, thing that I would take away from this from a question or inquiry

point was the specific groups of people I choose. I only had access to athletes and I wonder if the

competitive aspect of going against another person was the cognitive trigger to help them

commit the answers to memory or was it the nature of competing against the collect this trigger

they need to help process and keep the answers in mind. This something that I would test again

in a further study.
Are time based quiz questions for higher learning? 7

Jim Mckenna, N. D.-L. (2006). An Action Research Approach to Supporting Elite Student-

Athletes in Higher Educatio. European physical education review, 179-198.

Lonka, K. (2006). Studying in higher education: students' approaches to learning, self-regulation,

and cognitive strategies. studies in higher education, 99-117.

Vermunt. (2005). Patterns in Student Learning: Relationships Between Learning Strategies,

Conceptions of Learning, and Learning Orientation. Educational Psychology, 359-384.