Effects of a flipped classroom college business course on students' pre-class preparation, in-class participation, learning, and skills development

As an example of pedagogical approaches that blend online and face-to-face instruction, the flipped classroom model has seen exponential growth in business schools. To explore its effectiveness, expectancy-value theory and cognitive load theory were employed to develop a framework linking students' perceived usefulness of the online and in-person content to their pre-class preparation, class participation, perceived learning, and skills development. A preliminary test of this framework was conducted using a flipped Organizational Behavior course within a business diploma program at a publicly funded Canadian college. The perceived usefulness of the online component was positively associated with students' pre-class preparation, which, in turn, was positively related to both their perceived learning and skills development. Implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.