Effectiveness of Flipped Classroom Pedagogy in Programming Education: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The flipped classroom has generated considerable interest in programming education in recent years. This meta-analysis aimed to assess the effectiveness of a flipped classroom and traditional methods in teaching programming courses and the impact on students’ performance, problem-solving abilities, and behavioural outcomes, and to analyse the specific discipline, students’ type, students’ level, and publication sources in the relevant studies. Articles published between 2010 and 2021 were searched carefully in six academic databases, comprising Web of Science, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, ScienceDirect, NCBI Databases, and Springer Link. Peer-reviewed articles written in English were selected and screened according to the inclusion criteria. All the vital data were extracted and stored in Microsoft Excel and meta-analysis was performed using the Comprehensive Meta-analysis (CMA) software. A total of 101 articles were retrieved while 27 of them met the inclusion criteria and were subjected to the meta-analysis. Flipped classroom improved students’ achievement in programming courses with statistically significant effect size (g = 0.56; p < 0.001, 95% confidence interval; 0.33-0.79) compared to traditional teaching method. The flipped classroom also favoured behavioural outcome (satisfaction) in programming education. Programming subject areas had a significant moderating impact on the effect sizes. Overall, evidence of publication bias was lacking in this study. The findings and implications of implementing flipped classrooms in programming education were highlighted. More studies are needed to elucidate the effect of flipped classroom model on various dimensions of programming students’ learning outcomes to support comparative research in future.