Presented By: Brandy Sreenilayam, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Co-Authors: Nikita Mirajkar, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Michael Roberts, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Junius Rosario, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

Purpose 
Active learning in the classroom leads to better long-term retention of material. One form of active learning involves asking questions and students responding anonymously. This study investigated the impact of student engagement in electronic response software during lectures on medical students' performance. 

Methods 
TopHat® was utilized as the active learning platform in biochemistry and pharmacology lectures. Upon completion of the courses, data was coded and identifiable information about the students was removed. Collected data included the number of TopHat® questions a student attempted to answer in a lecture, the number of TopHat® questions answered correctly in a lecture, the number of exam questions answered correctly in a lecture and the final grade in the course. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS) Version 28, Excel and Google sheets. Three years of data has been collected from the biochemistry lectures and two years from the pharmacology lectures. 

Results 
The statistical analysis indicated that the number of TopHat® questions a student answered correctly in a biochemistry lecture was statistically significant for predicting their assessment performance. However, only 4.1% of the variability in correctly answered assessment questions could be accounted for by the variation in correctly answered TopHat® questions. For the pharmacology lectures, there was not a significant predictive relationship between TopHat® usage and assessment performance. Interestingly, unsolicited student feedback also conveyed an enhanced learning experience in lectures with embedded TopHat® questions. 

Conclusion 
In-class student engagement through TopHat® was found to correlate with improved learning. The TopHat® platform only collects data from students who choose to respond to a question during the live lecture. Students benefit from these practice questions regardless if they actively participate during the live lecture or watch the recorded lectures asynchronously.®