Flipped classroom: Fostering creative skills in undergraduate students of health sciences

Abstract

Recent advances in science suggest that the medical and biomedical fields will change rapidly in the next years. Training adaptable and innovative professionals has been identified as an urgent need. The flipped classroom approach has garnered significant attention in higher education as a methodology to train health science students for higher order thinking skills, such as creativity and critical thinking, as well as for questioning how their future profession will affect society. This study examines how the implementation of flipped classroom methodology fosters the development of creativity and critical thinking skills in undergraduate health science students, assesses the students’ opinions on this methodology, and measures its effects on their learning results. A descriptive-evaluative research based on the combination of quantitative statistical techniques and qualitative content analysis methods was carried out. Ninety-three students participated in this study during the academic year 2016–2017. The effect of flipped classroom activities was assessed using creativity, critical thinking skills, students’ opinions, and learning result variables. The results showed that (i) students had the perception of having developed creative and critical thinking skills and social awareness throughout the flipped classroom methodology; (ii) students were highly satisfied with this teaching method and recommended implementing it as a regular activity of the curriculum; (iii) better learning results were obtained using this method than with traditional learning; and (iv) the length of sessions and the type of knowledge to be assessed have been identified as the main limitations to implementing this method. Data of this study provide insight to how complex skills (e.g., creativity and critical thinking), and their effects on learning results, can be improved in undergraduate students of health sciences throughout the flipped classroom method.