The impact of the flipped classroom in higher education: a case study

Abstract

Some of the new teaching models that have emerged, including the Flipped Classroom, can be key to reversing traditional educational practices. However, it is necessary to analyse in detail how these educational experiences are being implemented in the classroom, and how this is affecting students' learning. The present research uses a case study methodology. The objective is to analyse a higher education course taught using flipped classroom methodology and to assess the impact of the implementation of said pedagogical model on the students’ formative process. The study used a data collection instrument based on a structured interview and a data analysis strategy based on the Grounded Theory. In general, the results show that students tend to express positive opinions and a good degree of satisfaction with their experiences with this pedagogical method. Most students confirm that the method successfully stimulates cooperative learning and favours the practical acquisition of knowledge, stimulating in turn the development of a series of key competences in the educational process, along with capabilities such as organisation, autonomy and responsibility, among others.

Flipped Classroom in the Context of Higher Education: Learning, Satisfaction and Interaction

“…Among the most useful characteristics of FC, the participants highlighted cooperative work [88]. Great value was given to group activities and teamwork, which favoured peer support in difficult moments [28,46,47]. Likewise, they considered that the FC model promotes discussion as a booster of learning.…”

“…According to the students, the role of the teacher was characterized by its active and participatory nature (58), acting as a guide of learning (46), as a participant stated: "they played a guiding role for our learning" (PROF_PAPEL, GG, p261). The interaction between the teacher and the students was greater with the FC model than with other methodologies (135).…”

“…A literature review on FC showed numerous studies and experiences reporting on the use of this model in HE [7,9,16,18,26,29,31,35,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. It has been reported that FC has positive effects on the educational process [43].…”

“…A large number of studies assert that FC allows the increase in academic performance, improving the understanding of the content of the subject and reducing the failure rate in comparison to fully online teaching and traditional teaching [9,16,18,24,35,38,43,46,48,[51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]. In this respect, the results derived from these studies show that FC adapts to the learning needs and promotes the personalization of teaching [29,51,60].…”