Audience Response System - an Inclusion of Blended Mentoring Technology in Computer Engineering Education

This Research-to-Practice Work-In-Progress paper explores the subjective evaluation of an Audience Response System (ARS) as a blended mentoring technology included in the pedagogical approach in computer engineering education. The ability to use scientific research methodologies represents a crucial competence for students in the field of computer engineering. In addition, this covers a wide range of sub competencies required for their future work according to the competency model of information technology (IT) industry. Imparting these competences is ensured by a seminar representing the testbed for this exploratory study. The study objective is to analyze the subjective evaluation of the ARS technology as blended mentoring method. Therefore, the ARS is used to created opportunities for the lecturer and the students to initiate discussions focused on the learning objectives in the seminar. The research approach bases on a qualitative exploration and set it into relation of final grade and ARS usage frequency. The qualitative results show the acceptance of the ARS technology by the students and indicate a suitable approach in education. In addition, positive feedback is received for the bidirectional discussions, confirming the expectation by the theory of Zone of Proximal Development. Furthermore, the grading analysis indicate a positive influence of the ARS on the final grade depending on usage frequency.