Development and Initial Validation of a Flipped Classroom Adoption Inventory in Higher Education

The purpose of this study is to develop and initially validate an inventory to learn about the critical variables involved in a higher education instructor’s decision to adopt a flipped classroom instructional model. A flipped classroom is an instructional model in which students’ learning is divided into two phases, the self-directed pre-class learning phase and the in-class student-centered active learning phase. Both phases are typically technology-enhanced. This study addresses a gap in the recent research regarding the identification and assessment of the critical variables that are related to a higher education instructor’s decision to adopt a flipped classroom instructional model.

This study proposed a six-scale, 43-item inventory on higher education instructors’ adoption decision of a flipped classroom instructional model. After pilot study, this inventory was released to instructors at UTK through a web-based survey software tool and received more than 200 valid responses. A validated and refined inventory was generated after an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), which was used to identify the factor structure and the relationship between items and the factors. This validated inventory includes 24 items in three subscales, which represent three factors that might influence a higher education instructor’s adoption decision of a flipped classroom instructional model. Then, the three factors were used as independent variables in a multiple regression to examine their ability to predict a higher education instructor’s adoption decision. The results revealed that performance expectancy and technology self- efficacy are strong predictors of a higher education instructor’s decision to adopt a flipped classroom instructional model.