Lecture in the Living Room, Homework in the Classroom: The Effects of Flipped Instruction on Graduate EFL Students' Exam Performance

Data from an EFL (English as a foreign language) graduate research methods course (N = 384) was used to assess the effect of flipped instruction on students' exam performance over one academic year. Participants, who were enrolled in two different universities in Algeria, were randomly assigned to a flipped course (n = 192) and a conventional course (n = 192). Both the treatment and control groups took one semester (16 weeks) of traditional instruction in fall 2016. In spring 2017, the treatment group took a flipped course (16 weeks) while the control group continued to take a traditional course (16 weeks). Exam performance was assessed via three in-class measurements: four 45-min quizzes, one midterm, and one final exam. Flipped students exhibited statistically significant gains in exam scores than their non-flipped counterparts, implying the efficacy of flipped teaching, if carefully implemented, in optimizing students' exam performance over traditional instruction.