CPS GUIDE

A VERY Beginner’s Guide to Using an Audience Response Technology System to Enhance Your Small Group Social Norms Intervention

Virginia Commonwealth University
Office of Health Promotion
University Student Health Services

Linda C. Hancock, FNP, PhD
Katie Vatalaro Hill, MPH, CHES
Jim Hardiman, MSW, LCSW, CSAC
Amanda Wattenmaker, MPH, CHES
Tammy McKeown, MS

Funded by a grant from the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drugs Prevention Model on College Campuses, U.S. Department of Education

Table of Contents

1. “Most students like to use clickers!” A new strategy to the social norms approach interventions
2. I just received all this technology.... Now what?
3. Registering the clickers
4. Preparing for a presentation
5. Preparing clickers for participation in a session
6. Presentation Time!
7. How to create/load a game to be played with the clickers
8. Playing a game in CPS
9. Packing up the equipment
10. Producing a report from the data
11. Analyzing the data from the report
12. HELP! I still haven’t overcome my technophobia!
13. You are a clicker guru! Now what?

I. “Most students like to use clickers!”
A new strategy to the social norms approach interventions

Virginia Commonwealth is a large, urban university with a diverse student population. Many students are not of the traditional college age. Many also work fulltime jobs or multiple part-time jobs to fund their college education. After years of being characterized as a commuter campus, the percentage of students living on-campus is steadily growing. These changes have been a catalyst to developing creative social norms strategies that reach the often “hard to reach” student population. Colleges and universities with an enclosed campus may have great success with simply using posters to display normative data for their college. Although our market saturation rates for our posters are fairly impressive, we felt the need to find an additional method to reach the students with our message. Making use of cutting edge technology that VCU was already utilizing, we wanted to reinforce the poster messages and actually demonstrate that “VCU Students Are Healthier Than You Think!”

Employing an audience response technology system (also referred to as a “clicker system”) for a variety of phases of our social norms marketing campaign was well-received in part because we selected a clicker system that our university was already using. There are multiple clicker systems on the market (see Table 1). Our advice is to choose a system that your university is currently considers adopting, plans to use in the future, or will support your efforts in piloting at your university. VCU’s Center for Teaching Excellence has been instrumental in our adoption of the clicker system by providing faculty and staff trainings and lending us additional clickers. Another advantage to the clicker system we chose was the level of familiarity that the students already had with the clickers because they have used them in other classes.   

How exactly can you do social norms marketing with clickers? Below is a list of SNM activities that we have conducted using clickers:

• Pilot test print media
• Market saturation
• Focus groups
• Real-time small-group social norms interventions
• Fact-based educational interventions
• Pilot test survey items

These methods necessitate that the clicker system you invest in have an anonymous mode or can be registered as anonymous clickers. The students who have participated in the small group social norms sessions using our clickers tell us that they are comfortable answering the questions honestly. Our clicker data on actual health behaviors closely match our comparison survey data for most small groups. For example, a campus-wide poster that reads, “Most VCU students have 0-1 sex partners in a year” undoubtedly prompts skeptical students to question the survey data. You should see their little mouths drop when the real-time clicker data graphs on the projector screen show that the majority of their classmates have 0-1 sex partners in a school year, reinforcing the campus norm.

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II. I just received all of this technology…now what?

The eInstruction Classroom Performance System (CPS) is the system that VCU uses in their classrooms so we decided to adopt this system for our social norms marketing campaigns. The information through the next few sections pertains specifically to the CPS system, but may also apply to another system you select. The specific system’s user guide will be able to better guide you through setup, registration, installation, and system features.

Materials you will need to get started:

• CPS mobile clicker bag
• CPS installation CD
• CPS enrollment code cards
• Laptop with
  • Windows 98 operating system or higher
  • Intel Pentium II microprocessor or higher
  • At least one open serial port or USB port
  • At least 128 MB RAM
  • At least 128 MB RAM for CPS software (data bases may require more room)
  • Screen resolution of 800x600 or better
• Microsoft Powerpoint (for presentation slides)
• Microsoft Excel (for spreadsheet)
• SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences)
• Projector, LCD, or TV for presentation (optional)
• Internet capability
• Colored stickers
  
  
• CPS materials:
  • Clickers (32 per bag)
  • Receiver (1)
  • Enrollment code card (32)
  • Installation CD (1)
  • Extension cord (depending on the room where you are presenting)
  • Extra AAA batteries for the clickers

1. Label EVERYTHING!

Technology is a cinch when everything has a name that everyone can understand. Label the different pieces with stickers that are different colors, shapes, or designs. For example, we chose animal stickers:

• Frog: everything that makes the LAPTOP work (laptop, power cord, mouse, laptop carry case)
• Skunk: everything that makes the LCD PROJECTOR work (LCD, power cord, projector carry case)
• Zebra: everything that makes the CPS SYSTEM work (CPS bag, CPS receiver)
• Numbers: Label each clicker in your set with a numbered sticker 1-32.

You can easily produce these labels using a label maker. This number also will be used as the username when registering the clickers.

2. Install CPS onto your laptop

Insert CPS CD-ROM into your laptop. Save program in Program Files and create a shortcut for the desktop.

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III. Registering the clickers

1. Label each clicker using a label maker or other labeling method. It does not matter which clicker is a certain number, just that each clicker must have a unique number 1-32.
2. Each clicker bag will have an individual registration card for each of the 32 clickers. A different enrollment code will be on each card. To simplify the process, write a number 1-32 on the top of each card. This will enable you to keep the numbers aligned.
3. Create an Excel spreadsheet to organize the clicker serial numbers. There should be 33 rows and 5 columns. The column titles should be: clicker number, username, enrollment code, serial number, password (See Appendix A for example). The serial number can be found on the label on the back side of each clicker, S/N: xxxxxxx. It is easiest to make the password the same for all clickers. Make it something that is easy to remember.
4. Visit www.eInstruction.com to register the clickers individually by using the numbers from the Excel spreadsheet. Type in (or copy/paste from the Excel sheet) the serial number for the first clicker. Click “Create Your Account.” Because this system was designed for classroom use, you will be asked to provide a username, password, student name (Student xx), email address, and serial number. After registering the clicker, you will be given an option to enroll in a class. Provide the class key and enrollment code. There is one class key for all of the clickers. There is a unique serial number and enrollment code (from the cards) for each clicker. Once the enrollment is complete, click “Enter the class.” This clicker will now be included on the class roster for the class key that you specified. Repeat the registration and enrollment process until all clickers are registered and enrolled. Registering in this manner will enable all clickers to be used in anonymous mode. None of the clickers can be used to identify a particular student.

IV. Preparing for a presentation

1. Create a Powerpoint presentation with multiple choice questions
   
   
2. Save the presentation to the laptop that you will be using for the CPS session
   
   
3. Load presentation into CPS database:
   • open CPS by double clicking on the desktop shortcut icon
   • click once on the Powerpoint Presentations link to highlight it
   • go to FILE –>ADD FILE
   • Select the directory where the Powerpoint presentation was saved
   • Double click on the presentation to select it
   • Your presentation is now loaded into the CPS database
   NOTE: The presentation is ONLY loaded onto this laptop. To load it onto another laptop, you must repeat the steps above using that particular laptop.
   
   
4. If you need to make revisions to the presentation, you must first remove the presentation that you have already uploaded into CPS. Find the presentation that you wish to remove in CPS under the Powerpoint presentations link, click once to highlight it, and click FILE–>REMOVE. Edit your presentation in Microsoft Powerpoint, and save your presentation to the laptop that you will be using for the presentation. You are now ready to add the revised presentation by repeating the steps above, “Load presentation into CPS database.”

V. Preparing clickers for participation in a session

1. Double click on the CPS icon on the laptop desktop. Select the presentation that you wish to use and start. You will see a grey screen with instructions to join (prepare each clicker to participate in a session).
   
   
2. Power each clicker on by assertively pressing the white square button at the bottom of the keypad. The green and red lights should turn on.
   
   
3. Press JOIN 0 1 SEND (or whatever channel is specified on the screen). Be sure that you are pressing numerical values and not letter values. For example, press 0 1 (zero one), not the letters O I.
   
   
4. Once you press SEND, the green light only should begin to blink every 2-3 seconds.
   
   
5. The clicker is now ready to participate! You should see the number of clickers who have joined the session (32:32 will appear when 32 of the 32 available clickers are joined).

VI. Presentation Time!

1. All the clickers are joined, the presentation is loaded, and we’re ready to go!
2. Begin your presentation as you would any Powerpoint presentation, advancing the slideshow by clicking once on the slide. When a question slide appears, the clickers will be able to answer once you have clicked the button on the CPS toolbar that says VERBAL. For the first questions, you must click VERBAL and then select how many possible responses the students may choose from. Every question after the first question can be engaged (made ready for answer mode), by simply clicking on the button that represents the possible response choices. For example, A-D denotes that there are 4 possible responses for this question: A, B, C, or D).
3. On the bottom toolbar, you will also find a timer that you may pause, increase or decrease the time allotted to answer the question. Also on the bottom toolbar, you will see a grid with numbers in the blocks. Each numbered block corresponds with a clicker. Once the student has answered the question, his or her block will highlight blue.  Only the student knows what clicker number he or she is using, and at no time are responses linked to the clicker number. This feature can be altered; by clicking on the toolbar icon with a miniature grid, you can decide if you would like for the blocks to stay highlighted for the duration of the question answer time period, or if you would like for the blocks to only flash blue when they have answered.
4. A student selects a response by pressing the key that corresponds to the letter he or she wishes to select, and SEND. A student may change his or her answer as long as the question is engaged, by pressing the new response and SEND.
5. Occasionally clickers will power off if left idle. The student only needs to press the white square power button at the bottom of his or her clicker, and the clicker will power on, and already be joined into the session so there is no need to re-join.
6. If a student has not previously joined the session and wishes to join, he or she can join as long as a question is not in progress. Simply click the JOIN button on the lower right side of the screen and the clicker can now join by pressing JOIN 0 1 (or appropriate channel) SEND. The student will be included in the question data from this point forward.
7. To exit out of a presentation, click the stop sign icon with CLOSE. To exit the entire CPS program, click the stop sign that says CLOSE CPS.

VII. How to create/load a game to be played with the clickers

1. Click on Lessons Tab then Right click on VCU 101, click New –>Lesson, type in title.
2. Right click on title name, and then click New –>Question. Type in question, select font and font size, than template type and difficulty.
3. Next click on the Save and move to the next question icon which is the save icon with a right arrow beside it.
4. Then when you are finished entering all the questions, click the regular Save button and exit the question entry page.
5. Next click the Team Activities tab and either double click on the game title or if it your game title does not show, click New –> Team Activity and type in the category titles and game title, click OK and the Challenge Board should appear.
6. Drag each question into its category (example: 10-1 means there is one question in that box that is worth 10 points).

VIII. Playing a game in CPS

In CPS, click on the team activities tab. The game you loaded should appear. Click once to highlight the file name and click engage. The game will only allow clickers 1 through 5 to join in the team activity mode. It is sometimes easier to find clickers 1 through 5 by placing a distinctive sticker or mark on each of these 5 clickers.

IX. Packing up the equipment

Shut down the laptop and other equipment as you would normally. After disconnecting the laptop from the LCD projector, do not unplug the LCD projector until it has finished cooling. You may disconnect the CPS receiver at any time. Be sure that all cords/wires/pieces with the corresponding stickers end up in the correct carry bag. Your co-workers will thank you when they go to do a presentation.

X. Producing a report from the data

Highlight the presentation name by clicking once on it. You will see a list of dates and presentation titles. You may sort the presentations by date by clicking on the date/time button at the top of the column. Click on the presentation that you would like to analyze data for.

Click on the Reports tab. You will see a list of different reports. Appendix B shows a table of the name of the reports that would be helpful in analyzing SNM data, and also a brief description of the type of output that each report will produce.

Once you have selected a report type by double clicking on it, the output will be saved onto the desktop. Depending on the type of report, it will be exported as an Excel file.

XI. Analyzing the data from the report

1. Open a blank SPSS data sheet and the Excel export.
2. It is helpful to either have a hard copy of the Powerpoint presentation or to have your Powerpoint presentation open when analyzing the data. Use this to convert questions into variable names in Data View in your new SPSS template. Highlight the cell area in SPSS that is corresponds to the cell area in Excel. For example, if your Excel data occupies cells 10x 14, highlight an area 10x14 in SPSS, then copy and paste the Excel cells into the SPSS cells in Data View.

XII. HELP! I still haven’t overcome my technophobia!

All the clicker systems we compared offer some degree of tech support, whether it is by phone, email, live chat, or online FAQs. Many systems also offer free web seminars or conference calls that train on the various features of the system and answer the questions you may have. If your university has an office similar to VCU’s Center for Teaching Excellence, you may be able to receive additional support through the staff on your own campus.

XIII. Give yourself a pat on the back! You are now a clicker guru and are ready to impress your school with clickers.

So now that you have mastered clickers, what can you do?

Teach others what clickers can do, apply for grants to expand the use of clickers, buy another mobile clicker bag (or two!)