How Does Flipped Learning Work? A Case Study in Signals and Systems Teaching

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Figure one seems to be really pixelated text wise and should be cleaned up.

It should be stated earlier in the course design section that they are taught by different instructors. Instructor effects can really matter so this should be more fully discussed as well. What were the differences in instructors? The professors who are willing to teach flipped tend to be dramatically different than those who aren't, and those things matter as much as the flipped classroom aspects itself and have to be discussed. 

This is listed in "before class activities" "During the semester, the 142
teacher gave the students four projects to help them apply the course’s main ideas and 143
methods." -- is that correct? "Projects" are generally an after class thing it feels misplaced? 

Its not clear which of the things listed were used in both classrooms vs just the flipped classroom. But alot of things listed are not inherent to "flipped classroom". Were the "learning resources" available for both classes? Because this would also have a big impact but isn't specifically related to "flipped or not". Similarly were the "problem solving exercises" available to both. Did only one class foster a positive attitude?  These too are not an inherently flipped thing but rather a good practice. 2.5.2 says four projects which disagrees with the lecture based 3 projects. So were there also a different number of projects between the two classes? -- It needs to be way clearer which aspects are present in both courses vs just the flipped course. And if in fact nearly all these things are only present in the flipped, then "In this study, we compare academic achievement and student perceptions of instruction in a lecture-based and a flipped classroom" is not remotely true. Rather you compared a poorly taught lecture based course with a very well taught flipped classroom. While that still has value for discussion and publishing, it does not show the efficacy of a flipped classroom vs a lecture based classroom as you should be comparing well taught lecture to a well taught flipped. 

Did the students know what they were signing up for? Because that is a fairly big difference in class size, which I'd wonder if is actually because flipped class instructor has a better reputation. Similarly how were they enrolled? Because if the flipped class instructor filled up first, then you also have to figure in selection effects based on enrollment windows. 

How did you control for differences in populations we see this even in extremely large classes, you are extremely likely to have it in smaller classes. 

"The results of this investigation indicate that the students in the flipped classroom 328
outperformed those in the lecture-based classroom. " Assuming my read of all the things you implemented in the flipped but not in the lecture based course, you cannot say this based on your methodology. One was heavily supported one was not. This is not an inherently "flipped" issue. You can heavily support a lecture class as well and this would be the comparison needed to back this statement. 

"The instructors of both courses considered that the most important reason for student 348
difficulties in the class was deficiencies in their mathematical foundations, which are crit- 349
ical to understanding some of the signals and systems concepts. For example, some stu- 350
dents have difficulties understanding complex numbers and simple integrals." --and this has to be controlled for comparing your two populations based on selection bias and enrollment effects. 

Lines 394-396-- you can't say this is a flipped course thing either if in the flipped course they specifically tried to foster a positive attitude yet this wasn't done in the lecture course. In that case its just "trying to foster a positive attitude creates a positive climate". 

If I'm incorrect that these things were all instituted in only the flipped class and you actually instituted them in both you can ignore most of these comments and It would significantly change the choice in buttons as well, but that needs to be made more clear. 

 

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful feedback on our article. We describe below how we responded to the reviewers' comments.
See the file attached (Author to respond reviewer - MDPI - Rev01.docx).

Please also note the changes highlighted in yellow in the revised article's text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review of education-3588069

This article presents a study of the flipped classroom within the context of an engineering course.  While the aims of the study are laudable, as an educational research study this work has significant deficiencies in my view which would need to be addressed prior to consideration for publication.

The authors used a quasi-experimental approach of two cohorts in a flipped and traditional classroom, and compared performance on a common final exam.  While this is an established approach, what is missing here is any discussion of potential differences between these cohorts.  Indeed, what is typical is to apply a common pretest which would serve as a reference point for comparison.  That wasn’t done here as far as I can see.  There is little discussion of the difference in demographics or other characteristics of the two cohorts that might also provide an explanation of the results.  Beyond the single common exam, the only other information provided comes from student evaluations.

Other comments:

1. Figure 1 is very difficult to read and should be reconfigured.
2. The literature review and discussion of the flipped classroom in the introduction is both limited in scope and conclusions. There is a vast literature on the flipped classroom which is only modestly summarized here.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful feedback on our article. We describe below how we responded to the reviewers' comments.
See the file attached (Author to respond reviewer - MDPI - Rev02.docx).

Please also note the changes highlighted in yellow in the revised article's text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

You've addressed all my concerns, except the largest one, which is that because you added so many things NOT inherent to the flipped class structure, you compared something different than what you are fully claiming. 

The discussion should have a paragraph that discusses future directions needing to tease apart if a positive environment and extra learning resources were given to a traditional class would these results appear or not. 

The conclusions should have something about this too. 

 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have satisfactorily addressed my concerns.

Author Response

Thank you for your thoughtful engagement with our manuscript. We appreciate your comments