Journal of the Balkan Tribological Association
Vol. 20, No 3, 488–497 (2014) Educational problems in tribology
USING THE ‘FLIPPED CLASSROOM’ TO ENHANCE PHYSICS ACHIEVEMENT OF THE PROSPECTIVE TEACHER IMPACT OF FLIPPED CLASSROOM MODEL ON PHYSICS COURSE E. SENGEL Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the Flipped Classroom model on students achievement in and approaches and attitudes towards physics course. With the control group, a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design was used. A total of 74 students studying in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in Faculty of Education at the Uludag University, Bursa participated to the study. The students were assigned to experimental and control groups according to their preferences whether they would like to watch lectures or not: the flipped classroom group (n = 40), who received physics instruction in accordance with the flipped classroom model format, or a control group (n = 34), who received physics instruction in line with traditional teaching methods. Data were collected via the pre- and post-administration of the Achievement Test, the pre- and post-online survey. The results indicated that students participating in the flipped classroom performed as well or better on physics achievement test; and while students initially struggled with the new format, they adapted quickly and found the flipped classroom format to be effective. The students in flipped classroom model were willing to take course with different teaching models, especially problembased learning, discovery learning and individualised learning strategies. Keywords: flipped classroom, inverted classroom, physics education, approaches to learning. AIMS AND BACKGROUND Students in Departments of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) aim to train teachers who will teach computer-related courses in primary and secondary Schools in Turkeys1 and have to complete courses in 3 general 488
categories as subject field courses, science and mathematics courses and teaching formation courses. The recent studies investigated the problems that CEIT students faced with and questionnaire was administered to 373 pre-service computer teachers2. They found that the most important problem of the participants was related to courses unrelated to computer science with a percentage of 58. The attitude of students towards science courses was negative. In another study, students stated that these courses forced them and they could not understand because of limited background about them. Moreover, they thought that they would not benefit from these courses for their academic and profession3. It is well known that negative attitude towards any course, especially science and mathematics course, bring low achievement in these courses4 and this leads to lack of interest5,6. Lyons7 stated that another factor affecting opinions towards physics was the ways of transmitting concepts from source. It was stated that negative attitude towards physics was because of traditional approaches in lecturing. Moreover, the recent researches indicated that active learning strategies and learning environment stimulation –curriculum, teachers teaching, and pupil interaction-contributed towards students science learning motivation and attitude8,9. In order to increase the motivation of leaners towards physics course and enhance learning, lecturers have better to use computer technology and especially Internet applications. There are many strategies for using computer and Internet technology. One of the most popular one is using blended learning, teaching and learning process advancing together in class and outside the class. In application of blended learning, there are some different methods. One such method uses technology to introduce the content outside of the class by using video so that students can deal with the related content, solve problems with the guidance of teacher and study groups inside the classroom10–13. Because of inverting the sequence of introduction of content from class to outside of class by teacher made and/or ready videos and solving homework at school instead of at home, it is referred to as the flipped classroom or the inverted classroom10,13–17. Although having increased number of flipped or inverted classroom applications recently, there is a limited number of qualitative and quantitative researches about flipped classroom model. Mason, Shuman and Cook13, for example, investigated the effectiveness of an inverted classroom model on content coverage, student performance and perceptions compared to traditional classroom. In this study, traditional course and inverted classroom were used in two years with different groups at the Seattle University. It was found that using flipped classroom model, educator could have covered two more topics than traditional one. Quiz and exam results of student participating in flipped classroom were significantly better than that of traditional classroom in some problems. However, when all topics were considered, students in both groups scored similarly. Student in inverted classroom defined the new model as effective and satisfactory. 489
Deslauriers, Schelew, and Wieman18 investigated the effectiveness of flipped learning by comparing the two sections of physics class. It was found that the students in flipped section were engaged more than students in control section. At the end of study, average score from multiple choice test for flipped section and traditional section were 74 and 41, respectively. So, the flipping classroom produced significant achivement gain in physics. Strayer19, however, compared learning activities in traditional classroom and flipped classroom. It was found that participants in flipped classroom were less satisfied with the structure of the classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness and practicality of flipping classroom in University level physics course when compared to the traditional classroom approach. The first research question was: Is the student ready to participate flipped classroom model in physics course in Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department? The second research question was: Does the instructional approach affect the effectiveness in physics course in mechanics and tribology? This article presents a case study on using the flipped classroom model to teach physics course to second-class students in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies in Faculty of Education at the Uludag University, Bursa. EXPERIMENTAL In this study, the pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental method with a control group was used. There was one control group (traditional instruction group) and one experimental group (Flipped-classroom learning group or FLIP group). In this study both, qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Procedure. Until the mid-term exam, applied in the 7th week of the education semester, traditional classroom approach was used. Homework problems were given from the course book. In every week courses, in the first hour of the course, problems (related with previous week content) that could not been solved by students were explained by educator or by discussion method and question/answer technics. In the second and third class hours, new concepts were explained and problems related these concepts were solved. After administering mid-term exam containing multiple-choice questions, online survey about perceptions of students in delivery of course and accessibility of technology was applied. The survey includes questions whether they own required technologies to flip the classroom or not. Moreover, it includes some questions in order to find out whether students would like to watch videos in outside of class activities. From the result of the pre-survey, the students were assigned to experimental and control groups according to their preferences whether 490
they would like to watch lectures or not. The experimental group watched shared videos prior to classroom; try to solve one example from the course book. During 3 h class time, they first participated in groups in discussions and problem-solving activities and try to solve previously determined problems from the course book. Then they tried to solve problems individually. In both cases, they were free to ask questions to the educator. The educators make necessary explanations individually to student or the group belongs to. With the guidance of the educator, they found the answers. If one of the problems could not be solved by most of the students, then the lecturer explained the solution on the board to whole class. Then, students in both groups were advised to solve same type of problems in outside of class. Same lecturer taught the same topic in the same time intervals. After using flipped and traditional classroom models for 6 weeks, final test was administered to measure achievement in physics course. In addition, an online post-survey was used to find out their perceptions in using flipped classroom model and its applications (Table 1). Table 1. Pre-test – post-test quasi-experimental method with control group model design Groups Flipped Traditional
Pre-test physics achievement test pre-survey physics achievement test pre-survey
Application 6 weeks 6 weeks
Post-test physics achievement test post-survey physics achievement test post-survey
Subjects. The subjects of this study were 78-second class pre-service teachers who were enrolled in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies at the Uludag University. Of the original 78 students invited to participate, 76 completed at least some elements of the data collection. Of these, 75 completed the pre- end post-opinion surveys. 74 completed both pre-post achievement tests and pre-post surveys with 95%-response rate. From the result of the pre-survey, the students were assigned to experimental and control groups according to their preferences whether they would like to watch lectures or not. 40 students preferred to watch lecture videos and 34 did not. Data collection instruments. The research data have been collected by using ‘The Achievement Test’, ‘The Approaches to Learning Survey’ and ‘The Survey of Attitudes towards Flipped Learning’. Below, one can find detailed information about these measuring instruments. Achievement tests. Pre-service teachers achievement in Physics course was measured using final tests. Final test, containing 25, multiple-choice questions with 5 options, was developed by the researcher. The test was used to determine the 491
knowledge of students related to the fundamental concepts, and their skills on recalling the relationships between concepts, and applying them to problems. Questions were prepared according to behavioural objectives and purpose in chapters. Initial form of the test contained 30 questions. Test questions were analysed by two experts who teached physics at the Faculty of Education. Then two questions were eliminated. After that the revised form of the test was applied to 80 students that had taken physics course before. After analyses, three questions were eliminated because of low discrimination index. Finally, the achievement test was used with 25 questions. Surveys. Two online surveys were developed on Google docks survey. One of them contains items related with access to the hardware and Internet and their perceptions in watching courses and attitude towards solving homework problems. The second survey included items related with the experiences in a classroom with and without flipped classroom model. A variety of questions were used including Likert scale (strongly disagree through strongly agree), multiple choice interval questions and open-ended comment sections. Data analysis. Students achievements in Information Technology in Education – I course were statistically analysed according to the types of method used. Independent sample t-test was used to determine the difference. SPSS 22.0 for Windows was used for data analysis. Significance level was determined as 0.05. RESULTS AND DISCUSION Practicality of flipped classroom model (pre-survey). 98% of the student had access to at least one piece of equipment to watch videos outside the class activities when asked to identify their level of access to equipment to be able to watch lectures. Only 2% of the students had access to these at their home. But, they could access them at school or outside of their home. The most widespread equipments were laptop (95%) and cellphone (80%). IPod touch (27%) and Ipad (36%) were the equipment that had least accessible ones. When asked to indicate the weekly percentage of doing assignment completely, only 5% of the students completed all of the assignments. Moreover, 39% of the students completed the 80% of the assignments. The assignment completion rate was an inverse relationship with the number of students. Almost more than half of the students could not had completed the assignments. When asked to indicate the level of support in doing homework during class time, 66% of the students stated that they preferred to take help in solving homework questions at school under the control of lecturer. Moreover, 52% of them preferred more time to make individual search during class time. 56% of the stu492
dents could not have completed the homework problems because they were stuck in questions and 70% of them indicated that they did not have chance to ask for these problems someone outside of the class time. In addition, 72% of the students would like to join one to one studying process to take instant help. Students achievement. In order to identify any differences in priori between the flipped classroom model and the traditional classroom model, their performance in pre-test was compared. Mean scores on the pre-tests for control group and experimental group were compared using an independent sample t-test at a significance level of 0.05. The pre-test mean score on achievement of flipped group (M = 30.48) was almost equal to that of traditional group (M = 32.02) as shown in Table 2. There was no statistical significant difference between the groups, suggesting that the flipped classroom model and traditional model were almost similar in background before changing the model used in teaching physics (t = –0.57, p
