Comparing Student Performance in Thermodynamics Using the Flipped Classroom and Think-Pair-Share Pedagogies

Recently, significant numbers of instructors in higher education have employed the flipped classroom, or inverted classroom, pedagogy. Studies have found varying degrees of success of the flipped classroom in increasing student achievement. However, previous results from the author indicate that a significant time investment by the instructor is required to produce the required content for a flipped classroom. The Think-Pair-Share pedagogy is one of many active learning methods that have been shown to be successful in increasing student performance over non-active lectures. Furthermore, most teachers agree that incorporating Think-Pair-Share questions into their lectures does not require too much time reworking their notes. The goal of this research was to determine if student performance in thermodynamics on both computational and conceptual questions was increased when the flipped classroom model was used compared to students who were instructed using the Think-Pair-Share model. For this study in the Fall of 2013, two sections of thermodynamics at Trine University were taught by the same instructor using the same homework and exams. For the first section (N = 20) the students were instructed using the flipped classroom model. For the second section (N = 8) the students were instructed using the Think-Pair-Share model. While the relatively small number of students limits the statistical significance of this study, results indicate that there was no difference between the educational performance of these two groups on either computational or conceptual tasks as indicated by their exam scores. However, students in the flipped classroom did state that they enjoyed the flipped classroom model and wished that more faculty members used this method.