Wake Up! Your PDQ is Due!

BACKGROUND Student engagement in the classroom can often be an elusive goal. We as faculty in a four-year university-based clinical laboratory science program were noticing a trend of more students coming to class unprepared. In an effort to increase student engagement in two different pre-professional practice clinical laboratory science (CLS) courses, the pre-discussion quiz (PDQ) was implemented as a curricular component for enhancing student engagement. This was done as an active learning strategy to motivate students to read the material and respond to a series of questions in preparation for discussion before they came to class. A review of educational literature suggests intrinsically motivated learning enhances the learning process. It is suggested this intrinsic motivation is linked to such factors as the perception of personal control, self-efficacy, and the perception of relevance.¹ These instructional strategies should give the learner some control over sequence of instruction and pace,² and some even believe they should not be optional.³ The use of incentive-based preparation exercises has been found to significantly improve student engagement and provide an effective means of assessment.⁴