Graduation Year

Spring 2014

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Serkan Ozbeklik

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2014 Theresa K. Lomneth

Abstract

Abstract

When traditional lecture methods prove ineffective, some professors turn to alternative teaching styles. In particular, a flipped or inverted classroom, where students watch conceptual videos before coming to class and use class time for application and fine tuning of these concepts has become popular in recent years. However, little consensus exists on the efficacy of these strategies. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a flipped classroom structure implemented in a medical school course successfully improved student performance. To do so, I analyzed exam data from the University of Nebraska Medical Center before and after implementation of the alternate method in a course, and compared to another class taken in the same semester that did not undergo any change in teaching style.

In addition, I investigated differences among particular student academic and demographic groups that may benefit from learning in an inverted classroom environment. My findings suggest that the flipped classroom strategy is advantageous to student learning and can significantly increase the performance of particular divisions of students such as those with lower-than-average MCAT scores and students who performed highly in their first year of medical school.

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