Judul Jurnal: The role of pre-class and
in-class behaviors in predicting learning performance and experience in flipped
classrooms
DOI
Abstrak:
Flipped classroom adalah metode
pembelajaran yang telah dikenal luas untuk meningkatkan pencapaian dan
keterlibatan siswa dalam pembelajaran melalui dua fase yang berurutan:
persiapan sebelum kelas dan kolaborasi di dalam kelas. Terlepas dari perbedaan
besar antara kedua fase tersebut, masih sedikit penelitian yang mengeksplorasi
pengaruhnya secara terpisah terhadap pembelajaran flipped classroom. Penelitian
ini melakukan analisis regresi linier hirarkis untuk menyelidiki bagaimana dua
fase sekuensial tersebut dan ciri khasnya mampu mempengaruhi peningkatan
kemampuan dan keterampilan belajar di dalam kelas flipped classroom di tingkat
sarjana. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa diskusi sebelum kelas secara
positif mempengaruhi nilai tugas mereka pada tingkat yang sedang, sementara
kolaborasi di dalam kelas berkorelasi negatif dengan nilai ujian. Namun,
kedua fase tersebut memiliki dampak yang terbatas pada pengalaman belajar siswa.
Hasil penelitian ini juga menyoroti pengaruh minat awal siswa dan pencapaian
sebelumnya terhadap pengalaman belajar mereka. Temuan ini dapat memperluas
pemahaman kita tentang pendekatan flipped classroom dan menginformasikan desain
dan implementasinya dalam konteks perguruan tinggi.
1. Introduction
·
The flipped classroom is a student-centered
instructional approach that leverages digital technologies such as video
streaming and learning management systems (LMSs) to achieve effective
integration of self-directed and instructor-facilitated learning activities.
·
The pre-class preparation usually
takes place in an online learning environment enabled by an LMS where
students engaged in self-regulated learning activities such as watching video
lectures, reading assigned materials, taking quizzes, or contributing to
asynchronous online discussions. Online discussion: to promote active learning
and group dynamic.
·
The in-class collaboration of the
flipped classroom occurs in brick-and-mortar classroom settings. In this phase,
students engage in meaningful social dialogue and active knowledge construction
through instructor-facilitated activities such as problem-solving,
collaborative inquiry, and student presentations.
·
Despite the substantial distinction between
its two phases, the flipped classroom approach has often been investigated as a
whole, without in-depth examination of the vast difference between pre-class
and in-class behaviors and their varying effect on overall flipped learning
outcomes and perceptions.
2. Literature
review
2.1. The flipped
classroom and its benefits
Ø
Students participating in flipped
classrooms were often found to outperform those receiving traditional
instruction in subject-content exams.
Ø
The flipped classroom is known to promote
students’ higher-order thinking skills such as analysis, application, evaluation,
and creation.
Ø
Providing students with more time for their
self-study, as well as encouraging students to participate in interactive and
higher-level activities, the flipped classroom increases students’ school
engagement and promotes learning satisfaction.
Ø
However, most of the literature fails to
differentiate the pre-class and in-class behaviors when predicting learning
gains in flipped classrooms.
2.2. Pre-class
activities in the flipped classroom
ü
Simply imparting instructional content
might not be sufficient to prepare students for in-class interaction in a
flipped classroom.
ü
Several research studies have described the
LMS as a learning space for pre-class learning activities, which
provides a seamless, real-time, and non-invasive measure to gather pre-class
behavioral data, including time spent watching videos or browsing the course
site, the forum post length, and assignment logs.
2.3. In-class
activities in flipped classroom
v The main
form of in-class learning activity is group-based collaborative
learning through social interaction and knowledge construction (emphasizes
students’ understanding and construction of knowledge in the process of
dialogue and communication with others).
v
In the process of collaboration, one of the
most common behaviors is interaction, which can include providing suggestions,
giving feedback, and guiding thinking.
v
Moreover, off-task behaviors can
also occur during collaboration, such as looking around or having sluggish
eyes; this can be considered irrelevant behavior. It has been
revealed that irrelevant behaviors have negative impacts on learning
gains and may be related to students’ negative emotions, such as boredom
and frustration.
2.4. Individual
differences in flipped classrooms
°
Learning interest as a key construct affecting learning motivation and
facilitating cognitive function, as well as being associated with academic
achievement.
°
Student characteristics such as learning
interest and prior GPA were also included as possible predictors of flipped
learning in this study.
3. Method
3.1. Participants
44 first-year undergraduate students (age: 18–20) majoring in
educational technology from Central China Normal University.
Participants voluntarily selected their group members, and each group
consisted of 5–7 participants.
3.2. Research
context and procedure
The fourth week’s lesson employed the flipped classroom approach, which
included pre-class self-study, in-class group-based collaborative learning, and
after-class testing, as shown in Fig. 1.
Pre-class
: The learning
content includes two video clips (12 min in total) and five relevant papers
uploaded by the instructor. After completing the self-study, participants were
required to post their views and reflections on the study materials in the LMS.
In-class :
The first part was group collaborative learning.
In the second part, the instructor randomly selected four groups
responsible for different themes to present their work to the whole class.
After-class: Students
had one week to review the content, and made a mind map around the relevant
content, which they then submitted to the Xiaoya platform.
3.3. Data
collection and analysis
§
Predictors
The key
information for the research variables, such as measuring constructs,
operational definitions, and data sources, is listed in Table 1.
We used
video cameras to record the whole process of student discussions to examine
in-class behaviors.
Using the coding framework in Table 1, the first and third authors
freely encoded approximately 30% of the video segments with the aim of further
validating and revising the tentative encoding protocol.
§
Outcome variables : learning performance
and learning experience
Learning performance was comprehensively evaluated by the multiple-choice
knowledge test score and individual assignment score.
Participants’
learning experience was measured in four dimensions (i.e., behavioral
engagement, affective engagement, cognitive engagement, and learning
satisfaction). The definition and instruments are listed in Table 2.
The mind map
assignment was based on the collaborative learning task during the in-class
session.
This assignment was designed from the perspective of
generative learning to measure students’ reconstruction of knowledge and
synthesizing ability.
§
Data analysis : Pearson’s correlation and
hierarchical linear regression.§
4. Results
4.1. Descriptive
and correlational results
Correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationships among learner
characteristic variables, pre-class behavior variables, in-class
behavior variables, learning performance, and learning experience.
It is important to note that no significant correlation was found
between the test score and the assignment score. A possible explanation is
that the knowledge test and mind map assignment were designed to measure
different types of learning performance, with the former focusing on
lower-order thinking and the latter on higher-order thinking.
4.2. Predictors
of learning performance
Hierarchical linear regression was conducted to investigate the predictive
effect of pre-class and in-class behaviors on learning performance.
4.3. Predictors
of learning experience
Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to predict the learner
characteristics, pre-class discussion, and in-class collaboration on
learning experience.
5. Discussion
and conclusion
·
The results revealed that pre-class
discussion can significantly predict students’ assignment scores, and the
quality of students’ posts in the forum had a significant impact on their
assignment scores.
·
In-class collaboration could significantly
predict students’ test scores and learning experiences, and interaction behavior was a
significant predictor of test scores.
5.1. Flipped
learning phases and their predictive capacity
Both pre-class discussion and in-class collaboration had a limited
impact on flipped learning performance in this study, and their impact
varied with the different types of learning outcomes.
In the process of in-class collaboration, students tended to
focus on the hasty completion of the task at hand due to the limited class
time, thus lacking higher-order thinking opportunities such as synthesis
and reflection.
During the pre-class phase, by contrast, students were able to
study the learning materials independently and repeatedly, and active
engagement with the learning resources is known to promote generative
learning outcomes.
In-class collaboration only negatively predicted test scores, indicating students who were more active
in in-class collaboration may have lower test scores.
Compared with flipped learning performance, students’ flipped learning
experiences were rarely determined by either of the flipped learning phases
(pre-class and in-class).
5.2. Specific
behaviors as flipped learning predictors
Students who generated high-quality posts during pre-class
discussion were more likely to submit a high-quality assignment, suggesting
that it is quality rather than quantity of pre-class forum discussion
that promotes higher-order learning outcomes.
One unanticipated finding was the negative correlation between
students’ in-class interaction behaviors and their test performance.
In addition, the leader with more interaction behaviors does not
guarantee improved learning performance, as the added responsibility might
negatively affect knowledge acquisition.
5.3. The
importance of individual differences in the flipped classroom
… learning interest and prior academic achievement
significantly predicted learning experience.
Students with high interest in learning showed more engagement
and higher satisfaction.
Students with higher prior academic achievement, however,
reported worse learning experience marked by lower learning satisfaction.
5.4. Practical
implications
First, in the process of implementing a flipped classroom, the importance
of pre-class discussion should be emphasized for better learning outcomes. Teachers
need to provide well-designed self-study materials and tasks to enhance the
quality of pre-class learning, which can lead to better preparation for
in-class activities.
Second, teachers should be aware of the potential negative effects of
excessive social interaction during the in-class learning
process, as it might prove to be a distraction to certain students, such
as group leaders, who might spend too much time on coordination instead of
learning.
Third, instructors should seek to diminish the influence of individual
differences during flipped learning. Special attention needs to be
paid to students with low learning interest and high academic
achievement, as they are likely to withdraw from the flipped learning
process cognitively due to their negative learning experience.
5.5. Limitations
and future research
First, the participants were selected from a single course offered by a
top-tier university using convenience sampling, of which the gender ratio
and overall high learning achievement level suggest that this sample might
not be representative of the entire college student population, thus
undermining the generalizability of the study results.
Second, due to the small sample size, the number of predictors in the
regression model was limited; the small sample size thus reduced the
statistical power of our analysis in this study, making it prone to Type II
error.
Third, the research instruments for measuring learning performance (i.e.,
the knowledge test and the assignment grading rubric) were developed
specifically for the course content. While the preliminary evidence supports
their inter-rater reliability and content validity, the criterion and
construct validity need to be further verified.
Finally, the
pre-class and in-class behaviors occurred sequentially, and their possible
synergistic effects on flipped learning cannot be ruled out. Consequently, we
recommend conducting future research in varied instructional contexts with
more accurate flipped learning constructs, more diversified empirical
data, and more advanced statistical methods to enhance the
credibility, generalizability, and interpretability of the study results.
6. Conclusion
This study differentiated
the impact of two flipped learning phases, pre-class discussion and
in-class collaboration, on college students’ learning performance and
experience in a flipped classroom.
The
study results confirm the importance of pre-class preparation for
flipped learning performance, prompting us to re-evaluate the role of
in-class collaboration on the flipped learning experience and highlighting
the importance of students’ initial interest and prior achievement as
confounding factors.
