Comparing Student Learning Outcomes in a Flipped Classroom to a Traditional Lecture Pedagogy in Applied Animal Physiology

Applied Animal Physiology is a 200-level course requirement for animal science majors. In recent years, student performance has been satisfactory for the animal reproduction questions on the final exam. However, students have struggled with the intricacies of hormonal changes during the estrous cycle, and making comparisons between the estrous and menstrual cycles. We hypothesized that across all demographics, performance on the mammalian reproduction section of the final exam would be higher for students who received instruction on reproduction using a flipped method (2016 cohort, n = 62) compared to students who had been taught this information using traditional lecturing (2015 cohort, n = 73). The reproduction section was taught in the last three lectures of the semester for both cohorts. The 2016 cohort received three, fifty-minute flipped course classes during the course’s normal meeting time, all of which emphasized areas of common confusion. The intervention consisted of in-class hands on activities. Subsequently, there was no effect of intervention (P = 0.49) on the percentage of reproduction related questions answered correctly on the final exam for the 2016 group (74.1%) vs. the 2015 group (75.8%), SE±1.78; however, when the 2016 cohort was separated into four treatment groups: A. full attendance (three days), B. two days, C. one day, D. did not attend, compared to the E. 2015 cohort-traditional lecture, performance was different (P < 0.05). Student average exam performance was highest on the reproduction questions for the full participants (84% average correct) compared to treatments B-E 70%, 69%, 63%, and 75% respectively; SE±3.2. To gauge student attitudes about the flipped teaching experience, all 2016 cohort students were asked to complete a pre- and post-intervention survey. Twenty-one students completed both surveys (34% response rate). Confidence in knowledge and understanding of reproduction for treatment A increased from 2.4/5.0 (before intervention) to 3.1/5.0 SE±0.37 (after intervention). When reviewing mammalian reproduction material before class, student confidence was lower than when reviewing the same material after class for treatment A (2.5/5.0 vs 3.2/5.0) and treatment B (2.2/5.0 vs 2.8/5.0) SE±0.24. There was no effect on confidence in treatment C or D. Student engagement and participation in a flipped module is essential in order to have a successful classroom intervention.