THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE INVERTED CLASSROOM LEARNING MODEL FOR PRE-UNIVERSITY CHEMISTRY
STUDENTS: THE PRELIMINARY STUDY
Ayu Afiqah Nasrullah1*, Mohd Azrul Abdul Rajak1, Nur Hazwani Dahon1, Megawati Mohd Yunus1, Nur Anneliza Abd. Latip1, Sazmal Effendi Arshad1, Wardatul Akmam
Din1
1Preparatory Centre for Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
*Corresponding Author: [email protected]
Accepted: 1 August 2019 | Published: 1 September 2019
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Abstract: Moving a step closer in achieving Vision 2020, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education has always been a priority for Malaysia. Malaysia Higher Education Institution is implementing one of the goals which were to establish a scientific and innovative society. STEM provides students with the opportunity to investigate the information provided to them through inverted classroom (IC), in order to understand it based on their own experiences and makes learning more relevant as students are exposed to the concept of problem-based learning (PBL). In the Traditional Teaching Method (TTM) frustration has arisen when students were not able to translate information given during lectures into useful information that would allow them to complete their homework. Lecturers are continually being challenged to think about how best to integrate digital technologies meaningfully and effectively in their lectures. Reflecting this is the rise of IC. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an IC by using the problem-based method in Chemistry subject among Pre-University students. Students were divided into two groups;
experimental (EG) and control (CG) group. A topic in Chemistry had been selected, and the model paper test was given to both group before and after the lecture session. The EG will experience a shift in learning culture where student-centred approaches were implemented through given materials and asked to solve a PBL study case. On the other hand, the CG will comply with the TTM before given a similar study case. The result indicated significant improvement in model paper test marks for EG if compared to the CG. This reflects the effectiveness of IC as a central platform that helps to improvise and enhance teaching and learning methodology in the Pre-University Chemistry level
Keywords: inverted classroom, effectiveness, chemistry education, inverted problem-based learning, pre-university, University Malaysia Sabah
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1. Introduction
Nowadays, the educational system for the institutions of higher education is facing other challenges in refining the efficiency of teaching and learning process, especially for the STEM courses. The conventional educational systems are likely to content with the learning and teaching approaches as it keeps students away from realising their potential and develop their soft skills.
Nevertheless, many studies addressed about the varies pedagogy of teaching and learning such as personalized learning (Azida & Bilal, 2013; Netcoh & Ph, 2017), PBL (Gorghiu et al., 2015; Yew & Goh, 2016), an IC (Teo et al., 2014; Smith, 2013; Bergmann & Sams 2012; Bishop, Beach & Engineering, 2013; Christiansen, 2014) and e-Learning (Wan & Niu, 2018; Hubalovsky, Hubalovska, & Musilek, 2018; Chang, 2016) which are followed three pedagogical principles: personalization, participation and productivity (Luna, 2015); have been used in the classroom as the alternative for the conventional educational systems.
In recent years, IC has gained attention to be applied during the learning and teaching process as it can substitute the conventional pedagogy approach. An IC is the independent learning process, as the students were exposed with the lecture contents outside of the classroom through the lecture videos or readings (Smith, 2013; Teo et al., 2014; Fitzgerald & Li, 2015).
In other words, students can self-learn the course contents at their own learning time and learning pace (Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). For this model, a lecture period in the classroom was substituted with the active learning activities such as the PBL activities, discussion and debates, as the instructor was involved only for guiding problems solving and clarifying information (Christiansen et al., 2017; Fautch, 2015). Many literatures show the significant results in applying the IC model as it enhances the students’ engagement, participation, level of interest, enthusiasm and performances as well (Bishop, Beach, & Engineering, 2013; Teo et al., 2014; Fulton, 2012). The support system and technology in this model provide the flexible and interactive conditions to promote students to think effectively and creatively, fast-feedback and highly-responsible to their learning process (Herreid & Schiller, 2012; Lo, Hew, & Chen 2017; Flaherty & Phillips, 2015).
2. Literature Review
Literature in implementing an IC in Chemistry subject for the high school, college and university students show the positive outcomes (Ryan & Reid, 2016; Science, 2016; Cormier
& Voisard, 2018; Yestrebsky, 2015; Bradley et al., 2002; Teo et al., 2014; Smith, 2013;
Fitzgerald & Li, 2015; Christiansen, 2014). The combination of new technologies in this model are practical tools since it provides comfortable and flexible approaches to the students in the learning process, as it is appropriate in the 21st century (Fitzgerald & Li, 2015; Revell, 2014). Furthermore, the problem-based solving activities and discussions during classroom enhanced the interest level and soft-skill materials of students due to their engagement and participation in the activities, resulting in the improvement of their comprehension of the topics (Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Fautch, 2015). As a result, it increases the performance of students on the summative assessments (Fautch, 2015). There are limited quantitative data on the study of the implementation of an IC for specific topics in Chemistry subject among the Pre-University students.
The difficulties of learning and teaching process for the students in Pre-University are not like other levels due to the structure of course contents, teaching styles and the behaviour of students. Hence, the present study performs the investigation of the effectiveness of an IC for Chemistry subject among the Pre-University students. In the study, a topic that relates to the state of matter; solid and liquid have been focused on the IC. The present study should give significant outcomes since it could provide new perspectives in the integration of an IC to support the learning process of Chemistry subject among the Pre-University students.
3. Methodology
Research Design
For this study, a sample of 84 pre-university students was chosen from all students registered for the Foundation of Science, University Malaysia Sabah intake 2018/2019. Students were purposely selected according to two effective teaching-learning approaches namely, inverted problem-based learning classroom (IPBLC) and traditional teaching methods (TTM). The experimental design was divided into two groups which were Experimental Group (EG) and Control Group (CG). TTM conducted the CG meanwhile the new teaching approach which is IPBLC goes to the EG. The same lecturer taught both groups thus eliminates the teacher factor. As for the experimental treatment, the researcher was supplying different lecture materials to the EG (e.g., they were provided with online resources including video lectures, theoretical slides, chapter exercises and quizzes as well as online discussion with their lecturers during the flipped classroom session).
On the other hand, the CG is undergoing the TTM for the similar topic for a two-hour session. Theoretical slides and exercises were provided to this group during the class period.
The PBL was conducted to assess the students' understanding towards the topic learned after the experimental treatment, thus both groups were tested with an identical problem and expected to present their findings at the end of the sessions with only a team of five in each group.
Data Collection
The model paper test consists of 9 questions that used for both pre-test and post-test. The questions address to chapter four in their chemistry syllabus semester one which covered solid and liquid phase. The model paper test was administered for both groups at the beginning of the semester to determine before and after implementation in term of student performance. During PBL intervention, students were divided into a group of 16 that consisted of EG and CG. The student task was related to that the solid and liquid phase issues whereas it required they solved the problem among their group members in a given time before proceeding to the presentation. In that problem, lecturer encourages the students to develop their solution, support the student by asking a question in becoming an effective thinker. Students can use information resources (all media types) and lecture materials as sources of information. The materials do not teach, but rather support the student's inquiry or performance. After the discussion, the students are all engaged while presenting their problem-solving. At the end of the session, the same model paper was given to the same groups as a post-test reviewed to make comparison analysis against the pre-test results.
Data analysis
A statistical software package, SPSS version 23, was used to analyse the data and to produce descriptive statistics. To analyse the students’ performance based on the results obtained from the pre- and post-tests, independent t-test was used to test for differences in terms of mean marks in both pre-test and post-test between the EG and the CG. Statistical significance was set at Sig. value<0.05.
4. Discussion
In order to help identify any a priori differences between the EG and CG, their performance in the past Chemistry SPM 2017 grades was compared as shown in Table 1. From the sample
of 35 CG students and 49 EG students, it can be said that the distribution of the sample of the study is well distributed according to their past Chemistry SPM 2017 grades. There was no statistical difference between the two groups, suggesting that the CG and EG groups were very similar in background and ability before the Pre-University Chemistry course.
Nonetheless, where applicable, course grades were used as a covariant in statistical analysis.
Table 1: Distributions of students’ Chemistry SPM grades for control and experimental group
GROUP GRADE FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE (%)
CONTROL
A+ 0 0.00
A 0 0.00
A- 8 22.90
B+ 15 42.90
B 10 28.60
C+ 2 5.70
Total 35 100.00
EXPERIMENTAL
A+ 3 6.10
A 3 6.10
A- 9 18.40
B+ 18 36.70
B 10 20.40
C+ 6 12.20
Total 49 100.00
Short feedback was received from the students whether they have heard about inverted classroom and the result from the feedback was shown in Figure 1. The graph in Figure 1 shows that 80% students from CG and 75.5% students from EG have not heard about IC before. Thus, this indicates that IC method is a new to the students and it is suitable to be used as a new teaching method for Foundation of Science, University Malaysia Sabah.
Figure 1: Percentage of students that have heard about inverted classroom for CG and EG
Content coverage was compared in the TTM and IC offerings. The topic that is chosen for this study is the States of Matter: Solid and Liquid phase. The reason being is that this topic has been taught during high school and as for Pre-University level, this topic being taught in depth. Thus, it will make the IC much more interesting and ease the students. Active
pedagogy in STEM education could improves students’ grades as remarked by (Freeman et al., 2014). Furthermore, there are few statistical data on implementation of IC among Pre- University students on Physical Chemistry, hence this research is significant contribution on pedagogy world.
Both groups were assessed through a pre-test or exam in the 1st week before the topic being introduced. The following week was the TC & IC and followed by problem-based learning and a post-test. For us to evaluate the effectiveness of the IC, students' performance on the pre-test and post-test in the IC and TTM courses were compared. This study uses the independent t-test to see whether there is a statistical difference in terms of mean marks for both pre-test and post-test between the EG and the CG. The results are shown in Figure 2. It is seen that there is no significant difference in the mean marks of Chemistry pre-test between the EG and the CG before the implementation either for the inverted classroom or traditional classroom. After the implementation of both TTM and IPBLC, the mean marks of the post- test by the CG and the EG has increased from 14.5429 to 20.4857 and from 14.9388 to 22.8980 respectively. However, it is important to note that the EG has shown a more significant improvement in terms of mean marks for the pre- and post-test after the intervention of inverted classroom.
Figure 2: Performance comparison of Pre-test and Post-Test for EG and CG
According to Table 2, it shows that there is no statistically significant in the Chemistry pre- test result between the control and experimental groups as the p value is higher than 0.05 but the Chemistry post-test result in the EG is significantly higher than the CG with U=604.500
& p=0.008 (p value is lower than 0.05).
Table 2: Mann-Whitney U test analysis for Test 1 and Test 2 from the control and experimental group Test Statistics Pre-Test Post-Test
Mann-Whitney U 901.000 604.500 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) 0.938 0.008
The study result showed significant improvement from EG compared with the CG. This proves that the IC method is more effective in pedagogy. This effectiveness influenced by various factors that include digitalisation, learning time flexibility, and independent learner.
As the world emerges into a world of digitalisation, information is better consumed through a digital platform such as online, video content, and even from social media (Smith, 2013; Teo et al., 2014; Fitzgerald & Li, 2015). The digitalisation helps to reduce hustle and time consuming to access the information. Thus, it allows the student to gain access to information
needed easily anytime and anywhere. On top of that, there is various similar information available online for the same topic. The student will have more content to make a comparison of the sources available for their better understanding of the topic.
Flexible learning is one way to address these shifts. Flexible learning gives students choices in learning pace, place and mode of learning. This is because some students prefer to study during the day while others during the evening or night. The time at which the lecture is schedule could have an impact on the learning ability and subsequent performance of the student. Thus, the student would be able to choose the most suitable time, place and mode of learning for them to study at their best focus. (Flaherty & Phillips, 2015).
Furthermore, through IC students will have enough time to study and understand the subject, as they have time to study the material given such as online lecture videos, lecture notes and tutorial questions. Adequately produced video motivate students and focuses their energy through engagement and excitement. Students respond very well to high-quality videos because it helps them to understand difficult material. They could replay the video several times to ensure they mastered a particular topic. The student may pause, fast forward and rewind as they wish. Compare with the traditional method whereby the student is required to attend class and to try to understand the lecture in certain hours of lecture. (Buzzetto-More, 2006)
Besides, the students are becoming an independent learner, where they are better prepared in solving their PBL case. The students tend to seek for information independently which makes their understanding towards the topic far more in-depth compared with CG which usually received information during the lecture period. As the TTM had a less profound impact on students learning performance, IPBLC shows promising performance in their post-test result (Bishop, Beach, & Engineering, 2013; Teo et al., 2014; Fulton, 2012). Thus, this finding encourages educators and test practitioners to provide more effective educational tools for an active students' engagement in the classroom.
5. Conclusion
Through this research of Inverted problem-based learning classroom (IPBLC) method, it has proven its effectiveness in enhancing students understanding towards solid and liquid topics in Chemistry. It showed definite improvement of result during the pre-test and post-test. The implementation of digitalisation is a powerful strategy to address the effectiveness of IPBLC through exciting and engaging study materials such as video content, lecture note, and online discussion. Although the IPBLC brought positive results, it cannot be taken lightly, as there are needs for proper monitoring and control system to ensure the participation of students in the learning process.
On top of that, study material produced must always be attractive and in good quality to ensure student having the best learning input. To further understand the effectiveness of this method, a series of surveys on student's perceptions should be conducted to define the correlation between learning performance and students learning outcomes. Hence, different level of difficulties and more challenging Chemistry subject should be tested in order to fully explore the possibilities, challenges as well as effectiveness of this new approach — for instance; chapters in Organic Chemistry.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the University Malaysia Sabah Research Grant Scheme (SGPUMS) from University Malaysia Sabah (SBK 0294-SSI-2016).
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