F7-AL4-3 - The Effect of Motivation on Learners' Performance and Satisfaction under Flipped Strategy in Discrete Math
3. Research Work In ProgressPei-Hsuan Lin2, Nannette D'Imperio1
1 Pennsylvania State University - Brandywine, USA
2 National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Introduction
Work-in-Progress
In STEM field, learners are required to obtain declarative knowledge as well as apply them to solve real world problems. To master facts and definitions requires practices. In a traditional face-to-face classroom, the rudimentary subject knowledge takes up class time that could have been spent in facilitating high-level, problem-solving skills. Flipped classroom strategy offers an opportunity to shift a portion of the time in learning trivial facts to before the lecture (Edgcomb et al., 2017), which frees up lecture time for more productive use, such as teamwork, individual coaching, or problem-solving. To do so, homework or group activities are typically used to replace traditional class lectures.
There are many studies centered around the flipped strategy, yet the outcomes of adopting the strategy seem inconclusive. Some studies found it beneficial to learner’s performance, motivation, satisfaction, or self-efficacy (Aşıksoy & Özdamlı, 2016; Awidi & Paynter, 2019; Lai & Hwang, 2016). Others, however, had found that it did not improve motivation nor learning (Sun et al., 2017). Missildine et al. (2013) found low satisfaction after the flipped strategy was implemented. These mixed results could be attributed to a wide variety of factors, including learners’ self-regulated behavior, instructors’ practices and time of exposure to the flipped mode in class, some of which are currently unknown to researchers and worth investigating further for better understanding of the issues.
This study seeks to understand how students’ motivation and self-regulation in STEM courses affect their acceptance of and outcome in flipped classrooms. This is one area that is important and, yet, not very well studied compared to other flipped-classroom related research. Specifically, the research questions of the study are:
RQ1: Do motivation and self-regulation affect students’ satisfaction and performance in different teaching modalities (traditional and flipped)?
RQ2: Do different teaching modalities (traditional and flipped) influence students’ motivation in the subject and self-regulation skills?
To answer these two questions, we designed a within group, alternating treatments experiment implemented in two 15-week STEM courses (one Math and one programming) in a college. Students take the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich et al., 1991) in the beginning of the semester. Two learning modules are chosen from each course. Traditional strategy is implemented in one module and the flipped strategy is implemented in the other. Students complete pre- and post-tests for each model to assess their learning gain as well as a post-treatment questionnaire to assess their satisfaction. At the end of the semester, students complete the MSLQ again to measure their motivation and self-regulation. ANCOVA will be used to analyze the results. So far, this study has completed data collection from one course and is in the middle of collecting data from the other course.
The results from this study will inform educators when to adopt flipped strategy and to explain the outcomes in terms of learning and satisfaction if a flipped strategy is implemented in STEM related courses. The study will also pave the way for researchers to make connections between flipped strategy and learner’s traits.