Creative Education
2013. Vol.4, No.7A2, 126-129
Published Online July 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.47A2015
Copyright © 2013 SciRes.
126
Students’ Perceptions of the Effect of Flipping Online Classes
Using a Synchronous Interactive Online Tool
Lin Carver, Carol Todd, Karen Hahn, Keya Mukherjee
Saint Leo University, School of Educa t ion & Social Services, Saint Leo, USA
Email: melinda.carver@saintleo.edu
Received May 18th, 2013; revised June 18th, 2013; accepted June 24th, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Lin Carver et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons At-
tribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Online instruction is a growing field, but there are concerns about lack of student engagement with mas-
tery of content. Researchers at a small, private, southern university were concerned about increasing stu-
dent engagement with online course content. A synchronous interactive online tool (SIOT) was added to
six sections of online graduate education courses. Data was collected and analyzed from the university
administered end of the course survey questions asking students to rate their course learning. Student sur-
vey responses were compared from courses without a SIOT, courses where a SIOT was used for office
hours, and courses where a SIOT was used for assignments. The differences in the question means from
end of the course survey without the SIOT and those where the SIOT was used for office hours were not
significant. However, when the SIOT was used to provide instruction related to student assignments, the
data from the question responses were significantly more positive. Students 1) became more confident; 2)
gained an excellent understanding of the concepts; 3) gained significant knowledge; 4) learned to analyze
and critically evaluate; and 5) learned to apply course concepts to solve problems. Consequently it be-
came evident that the implementation of the SIOT did not have a significant effect. The important com-
ponent that impacted students’ perception of their content understanding was the way in which the SIOT
was used within the online course.
Keywords: Online Learning; Elluminate; Adult Learning; Content Mastery; Student Engagement;
Graduate Education
Introduction
Online learning in the university environment is an ever ex-
panding field. After examining the online enrollment at 2500
universities, Allen and Seaman (2006) found that during the
2004 fall semester, 2.3 million students took online courses.
However, by 2008, that number had doubled to 4.6 million
(Allen & Seaman, 2010). Murray, Perez, Geist, and Hedrick
(2012) suggested there would be continued growth in online
learning. They predicted that by 2014 a majority of college
students would be taking at least some of their courses online.
Kester, Kirschner, and Corbalan (2006) found that the quality
of interaction is an important component in the learning envi-
ronment.
Adult learners identified ease of access and minimizing costs
associated with courses as major advantages of online instruc-
tion (Ward, Peters, & Shelley, 2010). Rising fuel prices and the
economic recession have probably increased these concerns.
However, adult learners also reported enjoying the convenience
and opportunities online learning affords. Although these adult
learners also expressed concerns about the quality of the in-
struction, learning, and interaction the online format provided
(Ward, Peters, & Shelley, 2010). Ward, Peters, and Shelley
(2010) found that incorporating a Synchronous Interactive
Online Instrument (SIOI) in an online course increased partici-
pant satisfaction with the online course.
Purpose and Description of the Study
The purpose of this study was to explore how flipping the
typical online instruction to include opportunities for content
interactions through a Synchronous Interactive Online Tool
(SIOT), (adapted from the work of Ward, Peters, & Shelley,
2010), impacted students’ satisfaction with the online learning
environment. Elluminate, an online conferencing tool was the
SOIT used in the investigation by the researchers in this study.
A mixed-method approach, was used to examine student satis-
faction with graduate Educational Leadership, Exceptional
Student Education, Reading, and Instructional Design courses
from both the instructors’ and the students’ perspectives.
Theoretical Framework and
Review of Literature
The literature review focused on three important areas for
creating desirable learning environments: pedagogical orienta-
tion, the flipped classroom, and the role of immediacy and in-
teraction in the learning process.
Typically, presenting relevant, complete, and accurate con-
tent is the major concern when constructing online courses
(Murray et al., 2012). Murray et al.’s study examined the per-
ceptions of 100 students enrolled in online courses. The stu-
dents indicated they were not satisfied with online courses that
L. CARVER ET AL.
used “flat resources, in the form of static text documents” (p.
126). Beard and Harper (2002) also identified student concerns
based on the limited human interactions that are available in the
online environment. This might be an important concern with
graduate courses because they emphasize practitioner tasks that
require students to transfer skills and integrate content knowl-
edge into new situations. Particularly important to take into
con sider ation for graduate students, were Schwartzman’s (2007 )
findings that online learners often experience difficulty com-
prehending and applying information so just making the infor-
mation available does not necessarily result in a successful
educational course. Students need to know how to apply the
information in new situations.
Students’ perception of the characteristics of effective col-
lege instructors need also to be considered. Students viewed
instructors as effective when they provided opportunities for
multiple instructor and student interactions, they clearly and
accurately conveyed information, and they effectively used
time in the learning environment (Onweugbuzie et al., 2007).
Respondents indicated that they felt instructors were effective
when they were “student centered, expert, enthusiast, and ethi-
cal” (p. 151).
Goodwin and Miller (2013) examined preliminary data on
the effectiveness of flipping classroom instruction so that lec-
tures are recorded and posted online while instructional time is
used for “homework” assignments. These online lectures in-
cluded visual representations, graphics, videos, and photos
which could be accessed by the student when they chose to use
them, rather than spending instructional time on lecture materi-
als. The original version of the graduate online courses con-
tained lecture materials in a written format which were used as
a basis for the materials students needed to know to create the
homework assignments.
The researchers were interested in trying to flip the online
instruction so that students receive additional scaffolding for
the homework assignments. A Synchronous Interactive Online
Tool, Elluminate, was incorporated to address the research-
based principles for effective instruction that teachers were
attempting to incorporate into the flipped online classroom.
Sams and Bergmann (2013) indicated the importance of
teachers responding to students’ emotional and learning needs
as well addressing their individual learning styles. Beesley and
Apthrop (2010) found that feedback had a strong effect size
(0.73). The researchers wanted to determine if the addition of a
synchronous tool would provide opportunities for feedback and
correcting misperceptions. The researchers chose a synchro-
nous tool with recorded sessions to allow students to pace their
own learning to match their individual needs. According to
Hattie’s (2008) meta-analysis of 800 research studies, he found
that allowing students to pace their own learning had an effect
size of .88. In addition, providing students opportunities to
practice and apply skills with corrective teacher feedback was
four times more effective than homework assignments alone
(Beesley & Apthrop, 2010). Consequently the researchers de-
cided that the addition of a SIOI would address many of the
teaching and learning strategies.
Hirumi (2002) found that interactions that increased content
insights, provoked analysis, and deepened commitment result in
higher academic achievement and engagement. He found that
simply sharing personal observations; however, did not impact
achievement. Students’ performance and satisfaction increased
with more collaboration between students and between students
and instructors. Ho and Swan (2007) found that frequency,
manner, and quality of contributions online were positively
correlated to students’ grades. However, Wanstreet (2006)
found that research on online communication focused more on
the quantity of the interactions as opposed to the quality of the
interactions. So simply increasing the frequency of interactions
did not positively impact students’ achievement and engage-
ment.
Research Questions
This study was conducted to determine if the addition of a
SIOT would improve student and teacher satisfaction with
online courses. Two research questions guided the study.
1) How will the addition of a SOIT impact students’ percep-
tion of the effectiveness of their learning in an online course as
measured by change in end of course evaluations?
2) Will the way the SIOT is used within the online course
impact students’ perception of their learning?
Methodology
Over the past two years at a small, private, southern liberal
arts university, six graduate level courses taught by three dif-
ferent instructors were implemented in three ways: 1) totally
online with no synchronous component; 2) online using a SIOT
for office hours; and 3) online using a SIOT to provide practice
for completing homework assignments in addition to the online
component. At the completion of each course, the researchers
collected and analyzed data from university administered stu-
dent surveys. Student recorded their answer to the question
using a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. One corresponded with
strongly disagree, while five corresponded to strongly agree.
The section data from the questions relating to student learning
in the six courses with the three different instructors were re-
corded and then the mean for each question was calculated.
Data from three instructors were included in an attempt to cor-
rect for variability between instructors. The mean score for each
question is recorded in Tables 1 and 2. A confidence interval of
95% was used to determine if the differences between the
means were significant.
Results
The seven components of Student Perceptions of Learning
section of the survey were analyzed using a paired t-test com-
paring the means of classes with no SIOT and classes where
SIOT was used for office hours in addition to the online com-
ponent. Results of the total student learning averages did not
reveal a significant difference (p = 0.173) between students’
perception of their learning in those classes where a SIOT was
not used (M = 3.920; SD = 0.27) and those classes where a
SIOT was used for office hours (M = 4.098; SD = 0.28). Al-
though the means for the questions were higher with the SIOT
being used for office hours, the difference between the means
did not exceed the 95% confidence interval. The question ask-
ing students to evaluate their confidence related to the course
content was the only question where the means were signifi-
cantly different enough to reject the null hypothesis.
Next the data was analyzed to determine if the use of the
SIOT to flip the class instruction was more effective than using
it for office hours. The seven components of Student Percep-
tions of Learning were analyzed using a paired t-test comparing
Copyright © 2013 SciRes. 127
L. CARVER ET AL.
Table 1.
Student perception of learning without SIOT and using SIOT for office
hours.
Survey Question
No SIOT SIOT Office Hrs. p*
Participated in each learning activity
4.435 4.433 0.088
Became more conf i d en t
3.809 4.341 0.012
Gained an excellent understanding of concepts
3.642 3.808 0.452
Gained significant knowledge
3.770 4.037 0.198
Learned s omething valu able
4.207 4.058 0.541
Learned to analyze and critically evaluate
3.760 3.942 0.510
Learned t o apply course concepts to solve problems
3.812 4.066 0.234
Total Student Learning Average
3.920 4.098 0.173
Note: *p denotes probability.
Table 2.
Data on student perception of learning without SIOT and using SIOT
for assignments.
Survey Question
No SIOT SIOT Assign. p*
Participated in each learning activity
4.435 4.522 0.481
Became more conf i d en t
3.809 4.315 0.007
Gained an excellent understanding of concepts
3.642 4.243 0.005
Gained significant knowledge
3.770 4.253 0.028
Learned s omething valu able
4.207 4.335 0.655
Learned to analyze and critically evaluate
3.760 4.272 0.026
Learned t o apply course concepts to solve problems
3.812 4.356 0.001
Total Student Learning Average
3.920 4.319 0.007
Note: *p denotes probability.
the mean of classes with no SIOT and classes where the SIOT
was used for practice in completing homework assignments in
addition to the online component. Results of the total student
learning averages revealed a significant difference (p = 0.008)
between those classes where SIOT was not used (M = 3.920;
SD = 0.27) and those classes where SIOT was used for practice
in completing homework assignments (M = 4.319; SD = 0.31).
Student survey results from the individual questions related to
student confidence, understanding of concepts, and applying
concepts to solve problems were also significantly more posi-
tive with the use of the SIOT. The data from the survey ques-
tions related to student participation in all learning activities,
academic value of the course, content based critical thinking,
and knowledge growth did not reveal a statistically significant
difference.
Using 95% confidence interval six areas were found to be
significant. These included students 1) became for confident; 2)
gained an excellent understanding of the concepts; 3) gained
significant knowledge; 4) learned to analyze and critically
evaluate; and 5) learned to apply course concepts to solve
problems.
Discussion
The only question where there was significant difference
with both uses of the SIOT, either positive or negative, was
students’ response to their confidence with the course material.
Interestingly, the mean scores for this question revealed ap-
proximately a half point of positive growth. This might be be-
cause in both uses of the SIOT, the students were able to get
their specific issues clarified more easily. However, just the
addition of the SIOT alone did not seem to significantly impact
students’ perception of their learning.
However, when the SIOT was used to expand content
knowledge through practicing with assignments, the change in
the students’ perception of their learning was dramatic. Student
means demonstrated about half a point of growth in five out of
the seven categories. Data indicated significant differences in
students’ perception of gaining an excellent understanding of
the course concepts, learning to apply course concepts to solve
problems, and becoming more confident with the course con-
tent. Interestingly, the addition of the SIOT did not seem to
impact students’ perception of their participation in the course
activities or their perception of the value of what they learned
from the course. This might have been because these two cate-
gories were rated more highly in the initial surveys.
Conclusion
It is evident from the results of this study that the most im-
portant factor is how the SIOT is used within the course. Sim-
ply adding it to the course did not significantly impact students’
perceptions as can be seen by the results from using the SIOT
for office hours. When the SIOT was used to specifically sup-
port and expand content, students’ perception of their learning
increased. Often instructors are seen as a significant factor im-
pacting student learning. However, the data indicated that even
when the instructor variable was corrected, students’ perception
of their learning increased when the SIOT was used to add
content and support assignments, no matter what instructor was
teaching the course. Consequently, it would seem that students’
perceived the synchronous component had a positive impact on
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L. CARVER ET AL.
Copyright © 2013 SciRes. 129
their learning.
However, additional questions about the implementation of a
SIOT in an online course still remain. This study was limited to
graduate education students. It would be helpful to know if the
findings can be generalized to a larger population in a variety of
fields, such as business or medicine. A SIOT can be used in
many different types of ways within an online course. These
could include such activities as group work, videos, questions
and answers, and presentations. It would be helpful to know
which method of using students perceive is the most beneficial
in increasing their understanding of the course content. These
questions about the most effective use of the SIOT technology
still need to be addressed.
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