The evidence

Meetings work better when people participate.

We would rather show our working than quote a statistic without a source. Below are the three peer-reviewed studies behind the claims we make about live audience-response tools — what each one measured, how many people took part, what it found, and where it falls short.

Read this first

All three studies were run in higher education, mostly with medical and health science students. None of them studied nonprofit teams, staff meetings, classrooms of children, or volunteer briefings — the settings HuddlePops is built for. They are good evidence that asking questions through a live polling tool raises participation and is well received. They are not evidence about your specific room.

We have not run our own research, and none of these studies looked at HuddlePops. Results depend on your audience, the questions you ask, and how you facilitate.

Nearly 5× more participation

30.1% of attendees answered each question asked through an audience-response system, against 6.4% for the same style of question asked using videoconferencing alone.

Study: Mentimeter Improves Student Engagement in Online Clinical Anatomy Revision Sessions: A Programme Evaluation
Authors: Armstrong EJ, Rogers L, Lyon M, Selway JL
Published: 21 November 2024 · Cureus, volume 16, issue 11, article e74178
Design: Programme evaluation. Eleven online revision sessions were run for undergraduate medical students at a UK university; five were randomised to ask their interactive questions through an audience-response system (Mentimeter) and the rest asked the same style of question using Microsoft Teams videoconferencing features only.
Sample size: 516 recorded attendances across the eleven sessions (240 from Phase 1 students, 276 from Phase 2), averaging 47.7 attendees per session.

What it found

Engagement per interactive question: 30.1% of attendees responded with the audience-response system versus 6.4% without (p = 2.20 × 10⁻¹⁶).
End-of-session knowledge test scores were higher after sessions using the system (6.6 versus 5.3; p = 0.007).
Post-session survey response rates were higher too (24.6% versus 14.3%; p = 0.003).

Limitations

The authors note the students were “a self-selecting group of voluntary attendees in a single institution and so may not be fully representative of the general population of UK medical students.”
Sessions were optional revision classes, not mandatory teaching. The authors call for the study to be replicated in compulsory settings.
Engagement was measured as the share of attendees answering a question, which is not the same as attention, learning, or the quality of a discussion.

Full citation

Armstrong EJ, Rogers L, Lyon M, Selway JL. Mentimeter Improves Student Engagement in Online Clinical Anatomy Revision Sessions: A Programme Evaluation. Cureus. 2024;16(11):e74178. doi:10.7759/cureus.74178

doi:10.7759/cureus.74178 Open access

88% reported better understanding

In a survey of 184 medical students, 88% said taking part in polls improved their understanding and 88.9% recommended using polls again.

Study: Students engagement using polls in virtual sessions of physiology, pathology, and pharmacology at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study
Authors: Bawazeer MA, Aamir S, Othman F, Alkahtani R
Published: 21 April 2023 · BMC Medical Education, volume 23, issue 1, article 276
Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Third- and fourth-year medical students completed a self-reported questionnaire about virtual classes in physiology, pathology and pharmacology run between January and April 2022.
Sample size: 184 completed questionnaires returned out of 234 distributed — a 78.6% response rate.

What it found

88% said taking part in polls improved their understanding.
88.9% recommended that polls be used again; 86.9% agreed they enjoyed participating.
63% said polls improved their performance, and around 53% felt polls improved their grades.

Limitations

Everything measured is self-reported perception. The study did not test knowledge or measure learning directly.
The authors state the study “lacked the impact of active teaching on students’ grades”, because the problem-based curriculum assesses subjects in an integrated way and grades cannot be separated by discipline.
The authors also note that all participants were female, as the teaching staff involved worked at the university's female campus.
There was no comparison group taught without polls, so the results cannot show cause and effect.

Full citation

Bawazeer MA, Aamir S, Othman F, Alkahtani R. Students engagement using polls in virtual sessions of physiology, pathology, and pharmacology at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study. BMC Medical Education. 2023;23(1):276. doi:10.1186/s12909-023-04253-w

doi:10.1186/s12909-023-04253-w Open access

It works in the room and online

Across 174 students split between in-person and online cohorts, live polling was rated highly by both, and the authors concluded it stays equally suitable in either mode.

Study: Using live interactive polling to enable hands-on learning for both face-to-face and online students within hybrid-delivered courses
Authors: Phelps C, Moro C
Published: 2022 · Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, volume 19, issue 3, article 8
Design: Comparison of two cohorts taking part in the same live poll, run on Kahoot!, within a hybrid-delivered first-year health science and medicine subject. Experiences were captured through written responses and a Likert-scale survey.
Sample size: 174 participants: 72 attending face to face and 102 attending online.

What it found

Responses were positive across both cohorts, with three themes: interactive polling was enjoyable, engaging, and valuable for learning.
Both cohorts rated interactive polling highly and saw it as an effective learning and revision tool.
The authors conclude that polling “maintains its suitability as a method of instruction across both face-to-face and online learner cohorts”, supporting its use in hybrid teaching.

Limitations

The measures are self-reported experiences and perceptions, not test scores or retention.
A single subject, at a single institution, with first-year health science and medicine students.
Students were not randomly assigned to attend in person or online, so the two groups may differ in ways the study did not measure.

Full citation

Phelps C, Moro C. Using live interactive polling to enable hands-on learning for both face-to-face and online students within hybrid-delivered courses. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. 2022;19(3):8. doi:10.53761/1.19.3.08

doi:10.53761/1.19.3.08 Open access

How we use these numbers

When we cite a figure on our marketing pages, it links here. If you find we have overstated anything, tell us at hello@huddlepops.com and we will correct it.

Last checked against the primary sources on 2 August 2026.

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