S. Rogan1,2,3, J. Taeymans1,3, E. Zinzen3
1Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health Professions, Bern, Switzerland, 2Akademie für Physiotherapie und Trainingslehre, Grenzach-Wyhlen, Germany, 3Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Faculty of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, Brussel, Belgium
Background: During the Corona pandemic related lockdowns higher education landscape was driven to switch to distance learning using eLearning methods. The latter also includes the flipped classroom (FC) method. This paradigm emerged from K-12 (from Kindergarten to 12th grade) secondary education and has found its way into higher education of health professions and medical education. However, effectiveness of FC in higher education setting is, as yet, not well understood. Hence, it is important to demonstrate whether the introduction of FC has a positive influence on the learning process of higher education students. To enable the use of evidence-based teaching methods in the future, it is necessary to check first the impact of the FC method on the learning success among students.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the current evidence about the effectiveness of FC in physiotherapy and other health profession higher education as well as medical education.
Methods: This overview of reviews study is based on a systematic literature search in the CINAHL, Cochrane, EMBASE, ERIC and PubMed databases. Two independent reviewers screened all eligible article titles and abstracts, read the full text from the included articles and performed extraction of data and study characteristics.
Results: This overview of reviews study yielded eight articles from six countries, published from 2017 to 2020. The oldest study included in all eight reviews was published in 2012. Four studies were meta-analyses, three studies were systematic reviews and two studies were scoping reviews. Three articles were from the area of nursing education, two from medical education, two about health professions and one from physiotherapy/occupational therapy education. The data of the included meta-analysis demonstrated significant post-intervention improvement in learning success (e.g. exam grade) for FC compared to traditional teaching.
Conclusion(s): The findings of the present study favoured FC as compared to traditionally teaching methods on learning success in health profession higher education students. The use of new media/digital technology seems a useful didactic aid to foster learning in students. Popular types of new media/digital technology are videos, quizzes, wikis, MOOCs (massive open online courses).
Implications: The results suggest that FC can be integrated into healthcare higher education (e.g. physiotherapy) to foster knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving skills and self-learning. The effectiveness of FC improved when university lectures implemented quizzes at the start of each in-class stage session. To reduce feeling of isolation and loneliness on the student side, university lectures should offer electronical communication platforms such as social media (e.g. FaceTime, Facebook, LinkeIn, Twitter, Skype) to guide students in their learning process.
Funding, acknowledgements: None
Keywords: professional education, teaching, self-directed learning as topic
Topic: Education
Did this work require ethics approval? No
Institution: Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health Professions, Bern, Switzerland
Committee: Kantonaleethikkommission Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Reason: This is an umbrella review.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
