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Authors | Institution |
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Noora Lindgren MSc |
University of Turku - Finland |
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| Student perceptions of learning in the flipped classroom |
A biomedical course "Therapy Areas in Drug Discovery and Translational Medicine" in the Master's Degree Programme in Drug Discovery and Development was changed from a traditional lecture-based to a more student-led and flipped classroom-based course.
The course, consisting of 14 ECTS, covered a different therapeutic area of drug development every week. Each week consisted of presenting the assignment, independent small group work (4 persons in a group), and an in-class session in the end of the week. All the groups had the same assignment to research certain questions in the therapy area by using medical journals, books and internet. In the in-class sessions, student groups presented their findings and students, a teacher and a changing medical expert discussed the topic. 20 students participated to the course and 11 students answered the questionnaires.
This study evaluated the student perceptions in a new flipped classroom-based course.
The primary study questions were:
Do students perceive the course beneficial for their learning and activating?
Student perceptions were evaluated with feedback questionnaires in the middle and end of the course. I designed the questionnaires by following the AMEE guide no. 87 by Artino et al. (2014). The questionnaires consisted of close-ended questions with Likert-type response scale and open-ended questions.
Artino AR, La Rochelle JS, Dezee KJ, Gehlbach H. Developing questionnaires for educational research: AMEE Guide No. 87. Medical Teacher. 2014;36(6):463-474.
The students found the flipped classroom-based course beneficial for their learning and quite activating.
The student-led flipped classroom gives more of the responsibility for learning to the students and can cause uncertainty in some students.
The student feedback was generally positive. Students mainly considered that they learnt extensively and understood the topics comprehensively. Most of the students found the course quite motivating and felt that they committed quite strongly to learn actively during the course. Students found the in-class sessions and exams the most effective in terms of learning. The group composition seemed to affect strongly on the individual perception of learning benefit from the small group work.
Same issues came up in the mid-course and end-of-course feedback. Halfway through the course, we were already able to make improvements. Students were asked to perform self- and peer-assessment for assessing individual contributions to the group's work. In addition, changes in group compositions were occasionally done. The areas that continue to need improvement based on the student feedback were clearer learning objectives, more structured in-class sessions and greater student commitment to the small group work.
Most of the students perceived the flipped classroom-based course better for learning and more activating than traditional lecture-based courses.