Meta-Analysis of Flipped Classroom
Ratchapong Kaosucharit erik_pierce@byu.edu kaosu
Advisor: Dr. Jamie Jensen, Department of Biology
Introduction
The “Flipped Classroom” is a learning model in which content attainment is shifted forward to
out-side of class, and then followed by instructor-facilitated concept application activitiesa in
class (Jensen, 2015). It is one of the most rapidly emerging and popular learning models to date.
It has become increasingly popular within many educational settings including medical
schools. Currently, the flipped classroom has gained such reputation that there are 12,000
educators around the globe who support and implement the flipped classroom model in their
institutions, including BYU (Jensen, 2015). The flipped classroom has unique
characteristics that differ from traditional classrooms. While the traditional classroom setting
provides lecture during class and homework after class, as shown in the figure, the flipped
classroom requires students to master lecture content prior to their class period. Then,
students are facilitated by their instructor to apply challenging concepts to novel situations. The
benefit of the flipped classroom is that educators are able to utilize technology in their teaching,
which opens up their class period for more student-centered active learning practices.
The flipped classroom model is a fairly new model. Current studies on this method are somewhat
limited and results regarding effectiveness are mixed. Many studies show that there are
statistically significant improvements in student learning (Bergstrom, 2011; Strayer, 2012;
Tucker, 2012; Tune, 2013). However, other studies show no statistically significant improvement
(Jensen, 2015). We suspect that there may be other factors such as grade level, subject matter,
institution type, researcher’s positions, etc., that contribute to the effectiveness of the flipped
classroom. Clearly, we need to perform a meta- analysis on existing studies to be able to
determine the overall effectiveness of the flipped classroom and better define the current state of
the research. By doing so, it allows us to better define the future direction of research on the
flipped classroom. It will also allow us to better understand potential moderators of its success
and apply these principles to many education setting.
Methodology
We propose to do a critical review of all the literature, branching out beyond just biology
and STEM fields to see what has been done on the flipped classroom. We expanded our search to
include studies back before the ‘flipped’ brand came about. Initially, the flipped classroom was
referred to as an ‘Inverted Classroom’. The ‘Inverted classroom’ was invented in 2000. In 2007,
the term was changed to ‘Flipped Classroom’ by two high school teachers. Thus, we use search
terms for ‘flipped classroom’ and ‘inverted classroom’. We search multiple databases such as
Eric, Google Scholar, Teacher Ref., etc. by using those two search terms. The searching process
has been in progress since the begging of this Fall Semester 2015. After the searching process
was done, we have gone through each research paper one by one to find out whether they contain
quantitative data or qualitative data. We discarded any qualitative data, because we are focusing
on the learning outcome of Flipped classroom. We then gather all of the quantitative data with
learning outcome on a google spread sheet. After the data collection, we will perform statistical
analysis to figure out whether or not Flipped Classroom module is effective after all.
Results
We have found over a thousand of research paper on Flipped Classroom. Many of them were
qualitative data. All of them were discarded. However, we were able to find more than 80
quantitative data that can be used to perform meta-analysis.
Discussion
Because we have found over a thousand of research paper on Flipped Classroom. The
number is larger than we anticipated. As a result, the project has to be delayed. However, we
found sufficient data that we will be able to perform meta-analysis. Because Flipped classroom is
relative new topic, it was possible that there was not enough data to perform meta-analysis. The
minimum is over 25 data points. Fortunately, the data that we have would be enough to perform
meta-analysis. This project will still keep going.
Conclusion
The result that will come from this study may change the education setting quite
dramatically. At the moment, many educators around the world adopt the idea of Flipped
classroom. For example, Khan academy is one of the first. If the data show to us that Flipped
Classroom is effective over all, we may see flipped classroom implemented over in BYU very
shortly. It is my hope and prayer that this study will contribute to a quest to improve education
institutions around the world.
Scholarly Sources
1) Jensen, J., Kummer, T., Godoy, P., (2015). Improvements from a Flipped Classroom May
Simply Be the Fruits of Active Learning. CBE – Life Sciences Education, v14 n1.
2) Bergstrom G (2011). Content vs. learning: an old dichotomy in sci-ence courses. J
Asynchronous Learn Netw 15, 33–44.
3) Strayer JF (2012). How learning in an inverted classroom influences cooperation, innovation
and task orientation. Learn Environ Res 15, 171–193.
4) Tucker B (2012). The flipped classroom. Educ Next 12. http:// educationnext.org/the-flippedclassroom
(accessed 15 July 2013).
5) Tune JD, Sturek M, Basile DP (2013). Flipped classroom model im-proves graduate student
performance in cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal physiology. Adv Physiol Educ 37, 316–
320.