Inferences from the study
The research design adopted in our current study aims to compare the F&P versus F&TT strategies with the AB research design. In both the types, the online flip phase contents were augmented with learning activities based on pedagogical design of the LCM. It is to be noted that these two strategies differed only in the teaching method adapted during the f2f class, wherein, the F&P had an active PI-based learning activities while it was the traditional teaching for F&TT. We had totally implemented three rounds of the AB research design for equivalent topics (as listed in Table-1). However, according to the instructor’s observation, the students did not understand the flipped classroom method during the initial few weeks of implementation. Hence, the first two rounds of AB design were used to allow the students, to get adapted to the flipped classroom method, tools of TEEL (LMS) platform and the learning activities based on the LCM pedagogy.
To evaluate the effectiveness of research design, first, we extracted and analyzed the student access frequency for target materials (as listed in Table
2) provided in the flip phase for both the F&P and F&TT strategies. The overall access frequency extracted for the learning activities across the whole semester inferred that the average number of log access was higher for the contents taught with the F&P strategy when compared to the F&TT (Fig.
6). The higher log access frequency in the flip phase activities for both teaching strategies infer that the students were able to effectively utilize and learn from the LCM online learning materials throughout the semester. Our present flipped-learning course can be corroborated with the research highlights by Brame et al. (Brame,
2015) on the higher student learning engagement achieved from interactive online videos. In accordance to their reports, we observed that the reflection spots provided in the LeD videos had facilitated the students engagement, thus enabling higher learning to take place. This could be further evidenced from the new discussion threads created by the students in the LxI forum activity attempting to answer the reflection spot questions. Similarly, the LxTs with diverse resources from the NPTel lecture notes has helped students to attain conceptual acquisition and supported the extended learning.
The student’s engagement behavior during the pair-phase activity of F&P strategy was characterized using the observation protocol items (Kothiyal et al.,
2013). This study indicated that the majority of students exhibited ‘actively engaged’ behavior during the Pair-phase of the PI activity. As pointed out by Hamdan et al. (Hamdan et al.,
2013), the flipped classroom strategy demands the students to engage in flip contents before the f2f sessions, and during the class they need to perform task-oriented higher-order activities on the same contents under the facilitation of instructor. However, in contrast, with respect to the F&TT (Type-B intervention), the students mostly exhibited passive listening during the f2f traditional lecturing sessions. The students were neither concerned to raise their doubts nor responded to any interactive learning efforts made by the instructor. Our study supports different existing literature on the flipped teaching implemented for multiple teaching-learning contexts that the traditional teaching leads to the passive listening of students (Goodwin & Miller,
2013). Few of our students did not get engaged in the flipped activities due to the low motivation towards the online learning and other logistic issues such as the poor internet connectivity, etc. Hence, in our present teaching-learning context, the instructor had to revisit the flip-phase contents again during the f2f sessions.
While comparing the access frequencies between F&P and F&TT strategies, we observed statistically significant differences in the access frequency for all the LCM learning components except for LxI forum activity. The incentives provided for students participating in LxI forum may be the plausible reason for a lack of significant difference between access frequencies in both the strategies. However, the same effect is not observed for other LCM components. In the current scenario, we indicate that comparing the access frequency between these two strategies is still valid as we adopted similar flip phase learning design for both F&P and F&TT type of interventions. To justify our results on higher access frequency for the F&P intervention, we decipher that the contents dealt with active-learning PI pedagogy during the f2f class sessions has helped the students to engage and learn those content with more clarity. The peer-peer collaborative learning activities has fostered the student’s interests to enhance their motivation to revisit the same learning materials provided in the flip phase, even after the f2f sessions were over. We infer that this might be one of the reasons to enhance the access frequency for F&P type of intervention. Furthermore, the access frequency data was reliable because the results were consistent over three components in the LCM model (LeD, LbD and LxT) except for LxI. The performance analysis using paired t-test on the post-test scores of F&P and F&TT revealed a statistically significant
p-value (
p < 0.05) and better mean score as compared to F&TT. We also infer that F&P method contributed better to achieve the higher quiz score more than F&TT. We show that improved engagement during the F&P strategy has positively correlated with the student performances. The increase in the mean score for F&P showed that the teaching using the collaborative learning strategy PI within f2f settings had led to the better conceptual learning of materials. Students being engaged both during Pair phase and the flip phase activities in case of the F&P strategy, emerges to be an important factor to explain the improved performance and satisfaction of students. Our observation supports the literature that reports an engagement stimulated by flipped learning pedagogy is inherently satisfying to students independent of their perceptions of performance. (Fisher, Birdthistle, & Perényi,
2018).
We further obtained the student perception on the F&P blended course. We conducted an unstructured interview with 8 students selected based on the low, medium and high performers. We obtained the student’s reflections on three open-ended questions. The first question assessed how did the F&P strategy help to enhance learning of physics concepts, and whether the strategy can be adapted as a method of active instruction by other instructors?. The second question investigated on what kind of challenges the students faced while using the new learning tools of TEEL platform? . Finally, the third question was on which of the LCM learning activity was useful for the conceptual attainment while considering flipped classroom? . Regarding the first question, students expressed that each of LCM activity was unique and helped them to better understand the physics concepts. Irrespective of performance, the students who were interviewed told that this new flipped teaching motivated their interest to learn physics subject as a full course. They expressed that they could find all the relevant learning materials at one place (MOODLE) to read them before any upcoming mid- or end-semester exams. Additionally, the students were quite motivated to learn through peer-peer discussions in the f2f class. Some students felt it difficult to understand the format of PI activities initially but later-on found it very interactive. Additionally, they expressed that providing the answers for PI questions using the Plicker cards made the PI activity more interesting and engaging. Some students felt that there were noisy disturbances from other students during the PI activity that led them difficult to concentrate on the tasks given. Thus, the perception survey analysis showed that a larger percentage of students exhibited positive perception of learning from F&P. They could utilize the effectiveness of AL pedagogies of both the LCM and PI. Nevertheless, few of the students whom we identified as poor performers seemed to have prejudice that physics courses would be boring. These students also expressed that they had never been interested to learn the subject with a better conceptual clarity. They just studied physics only to pass the examination even during their school education. It seemed to be crucial to change this low perception of learning basic science courses at this juncture of first-year engineering, which is only possible by adapting AL pedagogies. With regard to the second question on challenges while handling the technology tools, most of the students expressed that the BookRoll, an ebook reader as provided in the TEEL platform was new to them and it was quite useful to annotate their doubts. However, they required more mobile-friendly features and better training to handle the same. There were many other challenges such as possessing individual laptops and gadgets, time restrictions in internet availability for hostel students. Further, when alternated with their mobile data connection to attempt MOODLE quizzes, they were facing low connectivity issues.
The student response to the third question pointed out that most of them agreed to the fact that learning from the LeD videos and LxT resources were quite helpful. They got benefited from being able to revisit the videos and explore the learning materials multiple times at their own pace. Majority of students mentioned that the LxI posts/replies are not getting diverse responses. Additionally, there were lack of coherence in a LxI replies which reduced the overall motivation of students. Few students also reported that they were not clear about the operating aspects of MOODLE, for example, ‘reply to’, ‘posts’, etc. of LxI forum. The LxI activity allowed the students and the teachers to exchange ideas by posting queries/doubts, as part of a ‘discussion thread’. Thus, the role of an instructor is crucial to provide clear directions to guide and moderate the LxI activity along with a timely feedback. The student perception analysis could be correlated with that of the instructor’s observation on the discussion forum activities. We found that the quality of post created was not of a good standard and students just copied the contents from Google or Wikipedia. The discussion threads did not show any coherent replies beyond 3 or 4 threads. However, few of the good performers gave thoughtful answers and replied to the queries raised in their peers’ post. The quality of reply, regular engagement of poor performers in the LxI forum was not very evident. It is also correlated with that of the poor perception exhibited for learning from LxIs. We infer that the significant relation between the engagement of students in the forum activity with that of the performance score could be less prominent.
From the present study, we show that the F&P strategy could be effectively integrated into the flipped classroom for undergraduate engineering students. We recommend that the students and teachers need to be primed to get adapted with the instructional strategy and technology tools in MOODLE. Further, integrating the LCM based pedagogical activities such as the LeDs as the short videos, Quizzes as LbDs, LxTs as resource materials, a discussion forum as the LxIs and the knowledge quizzes are necessary to create a meaningful learning experience in the flip phase.
Limitations and future work
We identify a few limitations while implementing the present research design. To bring-in the contextual improvisations, we had deviated from the originally proposed LCM model with respect to the orchestration of learner-centric activities (Murthy et al.,
2017; Murthy et al.,
2018). For example, we did not provide the customized feedback for LbD quiz as instructed in the LCM model. Then, the reflection spots were not embedded within the LeD videos. Instead, it was provided as a separate label in the MOODLE course page. Further, the assimilation quiz or reflection quiz was not adapted. This was because, the instructor is a novice practitioners of educational research and took time to get acquainted with the new features of TEEL tool and the operational aspects of the MOODLE. Others limitations are in the methods of evaluation. The AB research design is a single group post-test analysis limited to the test score for only two target topics. Thus, AB design within the blended course needs to be tested for multiple topics having more number of baseline and treatment data points.
We measured the quantitative engagement data using the learning log data in LMS. Though there is an indication that key measures have enhanced the frequency of log access counts, in the LCM activities, we could not adequately create instances for cognitive engagement within the online content. Thus, it is highly desirable to use more effective tools to collect real-time evidence of engagement and learning. Furthermore, the indicator we used, i.e., access count in MOODLE for each LCM component is considered as a proxy for student engagement. Hence other indicators such as ‘time duration’, or ‘type of engagement in activity’ will be used for future studies. Lastly, we consider the F&P strategy was implemented and studied in a very specific socio-cultural context and for a particular subject course. Future studies should aim to investigate its generalizability in another context.