The impact of flipping the classroom in an undergraduate english course on student test anxiety : a mixed-methods approach on a case study

Abstract

Many students experience anxiety before an assessment: It can either be a normal feeling before any kind of assessment, also called performance anxiety, or it can be due to unpreparedness before an assessment. The flipped classroom methodology was introduced to 20 students enrolled in an English in the workplace course (ENL230) at Notre Dame University in Louaize Lebanon (NDU), for two modules in an attempt to reduce their unpreparedness anxiety before an assigned assessment. The flipped classroom requires students to cover the new material outside of class, and to practice it in class with the help of their teacher and peers. This study was based on a concurrent mixed method design. It was hypothesized that the test anxiety levels of students after flipping the classroom would be lower than their test anxiety levels before flipping the classroom. The results gathered by observations, participation forms, questionnaires and a focus group interview; compared between 2 non flipped and 2 flipped chapters; showed that most students were experiencing performance anxiety, and that the ones experiencing unpreparedness anxiety were less anxious after the adoption of the flipped classroom methodology. This methodology targeted the timing and content comprehension aspects of the unpreparedness anxiety. In addition, the research question explored: “did the flipped classroom methodology help students be more confident in their studies?” was affirmed by the results of the instruments used. Furthermore, it was observed that the test anxiety levels of the students enrolled in scientific majors (representing 47.34% of the sample) were less affected by the flipped classroom methodology than the students enrolled in non-scientific majors. Therefore when disregarding the results of the students enrolled in the faculty of natural and applied sciences, the flipped classroom methodology successfully decreased the unpreparedness anxiety by 60%.