Flipped classroom in engineering: The influence of gender

Abstract

AbstractThe flipped classroom technique has been applied to a part (“Strength of Materials”) of a second‐year compulsory course called “Technology of Materials.” Due to the number of students, the course is divided into two groups – one taught with the traditional methodology (98 students), and the other taught with the flipped one (97 students). In the traditional methodology, the teacher explains the lesson and solves the problems, with students as passive actors in the learning process. In the developed flipped classroom model, the students have edited videos on an institutional online platform, available before each face‐to‐face session. In addition, a linked activity is used to check the students’ knowledge before class. The in‐class time is dedicated to briefly reviewing the concepts explained in the video, with a special emphasis on the errors detected in the link activity, followed by groups of students solving problems. The aim of this study is to present quantitative results of the effect of the flipped classroom in engineering with a focus on the gender of the students. The results show that the flipped classroom model has a direct impact on student grades, especially for female students, which presents significant differences when compared with males of the same group. In addition, the grade standard deviation values were lower, ensuring a better general level. The students of the flipped classroom group also attended the exams in a higher ratio than others, as these students are likely to feel more confident in the knowledge they have acquired.