Critical Reading Two

The article Flipped Classroom Versus Traditional Textbook Instruction: Assessing

Accuracy and Mental Effort at Different Levels of Mathematical Complexity by Kristina Mattis

is a lab report based on an experiment conducted on nursing students. It focused on math

problems of low, moderate and high complexity problems. The results can be translated to

achievement in liberal art classrooms depending on the complexity of the class. Flipped

classrooms are designed to effectively combine traditional and online education by utilizing in

class and out of class time. The experiment focused on the results of students learning through

instructional video compared to traditional textbook instruction to assess accuracy and mental

effort. When students watch videos prior to class it allows for an interactive learning approach in

class because lecture time is being cut out of the course. Not only does it allow for more

interaction in class, watching videos are actually thought to help students learn and retain

information more effectively. This is known as the modality principle, which states that people

learn better from spoken words than printed words.The modality effect is mainly useful when a

lot of information has to be learned at once. Also according to the dual coding theory students

can process more information when material is presented in a simultaneous and balanced manner

through visual and audio methods. Results showed that accuracy increased and mental effort

decreased with flipped instruction especially concerning problems with moderate complexity.

The experiment did not show a learning benefit with low complexity problems. The conclusive

results from the experiment shows that the flipped classroom does improve test scores in topics

of moderate complexity because of the benefits of watching videos prior to class and being able
to interact and work through problems as a team during class time. The fact that the flipped

classroom did not impact low complexity math problems shows that it will be more effective for

more challenging liberal arts courses.

The article's purpose is to explain the results and procedure of an experiment conducted

on nursing students to see the advantages of a flipped classroom. It analyzes the experiment from

different perspectives to see which type of problems are best improved by this new approach. It

shows how interaction in the classroom is useful and also how watching videos prior to class are

beneficial. It explains in depth the benefits of watching videos, how the audio and visual aspects

better improve cognitive processing of information. Also the article explains through recorded

data the improvement or lack of improvement in low, moderate and high complexity math

problems. The audience reading the article would be anyone interested in wanting to find the

outcomes of the flipped classroom approach and to see if it actually improves learning and test

scores. Also the audience can be someone interested in the actual experiment, seeing who was

tested, how they were tested and looking at how these both affect the result. The lab report was

published by Springer an online science and media publication. The genre of the article is non

fiction because it is based on an experiment conducted and has resulting data to backup the

original proposition. A few pictures were included to show an example of a math problem being

worked out after learning it through the flipped classroom. Also tables were included to show the

problems used, their complexity levels and the amount of correct answers from the group

learning from traditional lecture versus the students learning through the flipped classroom.
 Bibliography

Mattis, Kristina V. "Flipped Classroom Versus Traditional Textbook Instruction: Assessing

Accuracy and Mental Effort at Different Levels of Mathematical Complexity." Springer, n.d

Web. 29 Mar. 2017.