Engineering Students’ Perceptions and Acceptance of the Online Flipped Classroom for Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Nor Fadhillah Mohamed Azmin,Ani Liza Asnawi,Siti Noorjannah Ibrahim,Dzun Noraini Jimat,Ahmad Zamani Jusoh,Mohd Firdaus Abd Wahab,Farah Ahmad

doi:10.31436/ijes.v9i3.407

Nor Fadhillah Mohamed Azmin, Ani Liza Asnawi + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.31436/ijes.v9i3.407

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Abstract

This article reports on the results of an open-response survey sent out to IIUM Engineering students to elicit their thoughts and views about learning their courses online via the flipped learning mode. The decision to take academic courses online was brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced many sectors, including the education sector, to either cease operations or make changes to their approaches. Hence the objective of the survey was to explore Biochemical Engineering students’ perceptions and acceptance of online flipped learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responses were collected from 80 Year 2, 3 and 4 students of Engineering at the IIUM. The results showed an overwhelming acceptance of online flipped learning among the students where only a small percentage of 2.7% completely rejected it as a preferred online learning mode. A majority of the students expressed a reserved acceptance (64.9%) of it, while 27% accepted it unconditionally. A major concern that emerged from the findings was uncurated and poor selection of videos for students to study before class meetings. This suggests that the flipped classroom approach can result in ineffective online learning if it is not designed carefully. The findings have significant implications on the technological skills and pedagogical readiness of university lecturers to design and deliver online flipped learning in an effective manner.

Highlights

Following the rapid spread of COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on the 30th of January 2020 (COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, 2020)
COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a severe acute respiratory syndrome which originated from the People’s Republic of China (Remuzzi & Remuzzi, 2020), the transmission of which occurred through close physical contact and has resulted in millions of deaths globally (Cucinotta & Vanelli, 2020)
Our research examined undergraduate engineering students’ perceptions and acceptance of online flipped learning to replace the traditional physical classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Following the rapid spread of COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on the 30th of January 2020 (COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, 2020). In reaction to the MCO directives from the federal government, the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) immediately issued directives to local higher education institutions, both public and private universities, instructing them to stop all face-to-face classes and take their teaching and learning (T&L) activities online They were to ensure that no student was left behind in technology accessibility. Our understanding of students’ perceptions, their acceptance of new teaching and learning methods, enables us to make more informed decisions regarding a course’s instructional design by considering those perceptions These data and insights are crucial for engineering degree courses as they typically require hands-on activities and physical demonstrations of concepts in face-to-face class meetings. It was set as an open-response inquiry into students’ perceptions and acceptance to avoid leading the students into giving answers that would result in biased data

METHODOLOGY

Participants

Procedures of Data Collection

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION