Much recent innovation in teaching economics has focused on active learning strategies and on the use of technology. At the same time, budget realities make large lecture classes a fact of life for principles of economics courses at many universities. Unfortunately, neither active learning strategies nor teaching with technology tend to work well in large classes: active learning is difficult to facilitate with many students, and learning with technology in economics has been limited, for the most part, to classes small enough to fit in computer labs. We have developed a system that uses handheld devices and wireless technology to facilitate interactive learning in large classes by putting technology in the hands of the students during class. The Wireless Interactive Teaching System (WITS) consists of Handspring Visors (a hand-held PDA) equipped with wireless capabilities, a laptop server, a wireless access point and projector, and proprietary software. This intranet uses the 802.11b wireless standard. WITS allows students to trade in markets, play standard economics games (prisoner's dilemma, public goods, 2 x 2 matrix, etc.), take multiple choice quizzes, and communicate with the instructor during class. (See http://lshta.vt.edu/index.html for a sample exercise and instructional material.) We report the results of a controlled experiment to test the impact of WITS-facilitated active learning exercises. Our study differs from previous work in three important ways.' First, use of the WITS system allows us to implement experiments in larger classes than previous studies using hand-run exercises. Second, we measure learning using exam scores rather than the Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), so that improved results are understandable in terms of students' grades, the metric that students and universities use to evaluate performance. Finally, to isolate whether changes in learning are from substituting experiment-based material for standard lectures or whether gains are the result of active learning, the control class held parallel "research days" where students discussed the same experiment. Students in the WITS class earned final grades that averaged 3.2 points higher than the control class, though impact varies by gender and class level. The impact on learning is highest for freshmen and women, groups that often struggle with introductory economics, and lowest for male seniors, who, in our sample, tend to be engineering majors satisfying a general education requirement. Teaching evaluations are also significantly higher in the experimental class
