At Universities, Is Better Learning a Click Away?

The students in Michael Dubson’s physics class at the University of Colorado at Boulder fell silent as a multiple-choice question flashed on a screen, sending them scrambling for small white devices on their desks. Within seconds, a monitor on Mr. Dubson’s desk told him 92 percent of the class had correctly answered the question on kinetic energy, a sign that they grasped the concept.

Clickers—not unlike gadgets used on television game shows—first appeared in college classrooms over a decade ago and have since spread to just about every college and university in the country, thanks to cheaper and better technology. Though K-12 schools have been slower to incorporate the devices into classrooms, their use is growing in that sector, too.

But as clickers have become more popular, particularly in higher education, a divide has emerged over just how...