Abstract:

Japan is now facing an era of “universal-access to higher education”, in which the students can enter university if they are not so picky. Along with the increase of the college/university-going rate, the decline in the fundamental academic performance of university students has become a serious issue in Japan. Many students who enter university are academically underprepared for higher education, and to deal with the issue, many universities in Japan offer developmental education to students who enroll in their institutions.

However, it is reported that Japanese university students with low academic performance tend to be reluctant to take developmental courses. They try not to hurt their pride by participating in developmental courses, and they don’t prefer to take noncredit extra classes. In order to cope with such situations, this study sought to apply flipped learning to an English writing class with students with low academic performance and to provide them extrinsic feedback on their accomplishment in pre-class developmental education.

This study purposed to identify the effects of extrinsic feedback on flipped learning for developmental English education. Participants were 78 Japanese first-year university students who participated in an English writing class. All of the participants experienced flipped learning which consisted of a combination of pre-class developmental video lectures of English grammar and in-class English writing activities. Students were split into three groups: the experimental group which received extrinsic feedback every week on their accomplishment in pre-class developmental education, and two control groups that didn’t receive extrinsic feedback on their accomplishment. Among the two control groups, one group showed a significantly high English proficiency level in the placement test.

Results of the study indicate that extrinsic feedback has a significant positive effect on students’ behaviors in flipped learning for developmental English education. Results suggest that students tend to engage actively in developmental English education when they are provided extrinsic feedback to confirm their accomplishment and performance.

Keywords:

Flipped learning, developmental education, extrinsic feedback, motivation.