Why We Love Audience Response Systems (And You Should Too!)

Audience response system technology is an invaluable tool for helping to engage participants during presentations for group meetings, electronic polling, or group training as well as to measure the effectiveness of conveying the information being presented.  Companies continue to turn to interactive technologies to enhance the effectiveness of their training and performance improvement programs in the following ways:

• Active engagement, via interactive keypads, has been shown to boost attentiveness, understanding and retention of the presented information.
• Interactive participation allows audience members to see how their responses compare with others and fosters a sense of competition in a non-threatening (i.e., anonymous) environment.
• Audience response technology allows training leaders to perform an audience analysis to receive real-time input about whether the information is being understood and is being presented in the most effective way.  Presenters can go back and cover difficult topics or teach them in a different manner if feedback shows that the participants are not grasping the important topics.
• Audience feedback via a voting system allows presenters to determine which topics are most useful and relevant to the needs of the audience so they can structure their presentations accordingly.  Responses can also be used to predict if and how participants will use the information in their jobs.
• Before and after polling can gauge the effectiveness of a training session and help training leaders continually improve the content and delivery of their presentations.  Post-training feedback can help determine the amount of actual behavior change brought about through the training.

In addition, effective safety procedures and related training programs can literally mean life or death to workers in many industries.  It’s imperative that companies have effective training programs in place that communicate safe processes and procedures and ensure that employees retain and use this new information on the job. 

Many training programs rely heavily on PowerPoint presentations to convey this information.  One key challenge with this is that audience members tend to tire of sitting in a class or meeting hall viewing slides all day.  Audience response technology makes interactive PowerPoints while also providing a more memorable experience.  Each participant uses a handheld wireless keypad to respond to questions posed by the instructor.  Learners become active rather than passive participants.

Research has shown that getting the audience involved with wireless keypads can boost learning and retention of presented materials by 17 – 37 percent.  A very significant number of savvy companies, including mining and energy companies, food processors, and heavy manufacturers, have decided to implement audience response technology to improve safety presentations by adding an interactive element.

Here are three key benefits that come from adding audience response technology:

• Participants pay closer attention and retain more.
• Discussion flourishes.  Because they are able to see how their perspective fits with peers, individuals who were reluctant to speak up feel empowered.
• The culture begins to change in measurable ways.

In addition, an essential piece of training is looking at how to affect individual safety behavior, and that’s where audience response technology makes a difference.  Instructors can immediately measure and influence perceptions.

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