2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In a flipped classroom, students are responsible for acquiring a basic understanding of the topics before classes by watching pre-recorded videos, reading textbooks, or completing assignments, which prepares them for meaningful engagement during in-class activities. Subsequently, the class time is spent on interactive active learning and reinforcement of knowledge, typically through group problem-solving in engineering courses. The success of flipped classrooms highly depends on student participation in pre-class learning activities. The students who do not fully complete the pre-class activities are usually lost and left out during in-class activities, which can consequently result in loss of interest or even failing the course due to adverse cascade effects of unpreparedness. This paper discusses the impact of course modalities on student participation rates in pre-class and in-class activities and its correlation with student performance. An undergraduate fluid mechanics course was delivered in an in-person and online flipped classroom format during 2021 and 2022 as the campus went through the phased re-opening. The student participation in the pre-class activities was measured through video viewer data and the in-class activity participation was tracked by class attendance. The paper reports that the modality of other courses that students were co-enrolled in at the time of taking the flipped classroom affected student participation more than the modality of the flipped classroom itself. Both pre-class and in-class participation rates decreased as the percentage of in-person courses in the department increased. In addition, a correlation was found between the percentage of students who fully watched videos and the percentage of students who received B or higher grades. Lastly, recommendations are made to increase pre-class participation in an in-person flipped classroom.