Working Adult Students' Perceptions of Flipped Classroom Videos in an Undergraduate Physics Course

The School of Engineering offers several degree programs across several formats, including one conducted online for working students. It is particularly important to these students to find a productive and efficient way to incorporate the theoretical content of their courses weekly. In turn, it is necessary for educational strategies to enable students to take advantage of such content in line with their capabilities and realities and, thus, help them to arrive fully prepared for hands-on learning activities in the digital classroom. The present study measures the perceptions of a group of such students on the effectiveness of flipped classroom videos designed to introduce theoretical content related to electricity and magnetism. It involves flipped classroom videos being made available, with restricted access, as part of an electricity and magnetism course in an evening undergraduate program for adult learners at a private Chilean university. The number of videos and the time students took to watch them were individually tracked through a learning management system. Subsequently, students completed a perception survey on this flipped classroom strategy and where they were asked to compare the approach to the traditional model of receiving face-to-face lectures before each class. A cross-variable analysis was then conducted to establish student perceptions precisely and accurately. This analysis yielded results on the suitability of the material generated and the applicability of flipped classroom videos in this context. Results show that using flipped classroom videos is a viable alternative for teaching physics content in an e-learning context with adult learners. The study concludes with several recommendations regarding possible improvements for future research.