Flipping the Classroom in Teacher Education: Implications for Motivation and Learning

In teacher education, it is imperative that course design, method of instruction, and classroom procedures align with the content. One way to achieve this may be to "flip" the classroom. While flipped classrooms have received considerable attention in recent years, much remains unknown about their effect on basic psychological needs or learning outcomes of preservice teachers. The purpose of the present study was to address this gap by utilizing a quasi-experimental design to examine differences in motivation and objective learning outcomes after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and grade point average (GPA) between traditional and flipped sections of a foundational educational course (N = 263). Results revealed that preservice teachers in the traditional section had significantly higher scores on two of the motivation outcomes (e.g., intrinsic and identified regulation), but that preservice teachers in the flipped sections had significantly higher scores on several indices of objective learning outcomes. Implications for teacher education are discussed.