Changing the face of academic skills workshops

The flipped approach offers flexibility in the way students learn and was adopted within Learning Development workshops to improve academic skills. Academic skills are predominantly taught using passive content, however the flipped approach looks to change the emphasis and provide active opportunities to understand taught knowledge. The sessions were delivered alongside self-paced online, asynchronous content to scaffold academic skills and feed-forward guidance to inform summative assessment preparation. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of the flipped approach in delivering academic skills. A cohort of 50 first year students completed three face-to-face academic skills sessions together with the asynchronous content. Each were themed to develop different academic skills using subject specific examples. Attendance data was collected and a survey was used to evaluate the asynchronous content and measure the self-perceived academic confidence levels of students. To measure the success of the flipped approach this data was analysed together with the number of attempts at each e-tivity and the formative and summative grades. Results demonstrated those who attended two or more sessions (57.7% /1.43) had a significantly higher summative score (p=0.041) than those who attended 1 or less (51.7% /2.73). The summative grades and the number of attempts at the asynchronous content demonstrated a positive linear relationship for e-tivity 1 to 3. Overall the academic confidence improved in nearly a third of all students for each e-tivity and 17 students (54.8%) stated that they preferred the flipped approach in developing their academic skills. This emphasises that the flipped approach is an effective method to improve summative grades and deliver academic skills.

Introduction was adopted and levels of perceived academic confidence pre and post sessions were measured.

Procedure
A cohort of 50 first year students completed three academic skills sessions in addition to the content for a module ( Table 1). The first 30-minute face-to-face session delivered within the first week introduced the support offered at the institution with regards to academic skills and then introduced the PADLET task in preparation for the subsequent sessions. The session informed the cohort how to access the on-line task and defined the small group activity required. This linked to reading an article and placing a reflection onto a PADLET. The e-tivity content was also introduced, and an expectation given that these were to be complete before the second face-to-face session. The second 60-minute face-to-face session in week two reflected on the e-tivities and developed skills to build an effective argument using the reflections gathered on the PADLET. All content delivered (online and face-to-face) was designed to support the formative and summative assessments. The final 30-minute face-toface session in week five focussed on feedback from the formative assessments to feedforward information to support the summative assessment. The asynchronous e-tivities were designed using the versatile and interactive content of the Xerte Toolkit 2.0. These were designed as five e-tivities which incorporated formative assessments within tasks to check understanding. They were themed into developing different academic skills and the content written demonstrated subject specific examples.
These included e-tivity 1: time management, e-tivity 2: assessment structure, e-tivity 3: writing an essay, e-tivity 4: writing a paragraph, and e-tivity 5: notetaking. These were presented as a separate learning unit within the module's virtual learning environment. To allow freedom in accessing each e-tivity they were not aligned sequentially, and all were made available to complete at the same time. Attempts were unlimited to allow students to access the content throughout the module. The number of attempts were recorded to help identify if there was a relationship with perceived academic confidence. On the first page of each e-tivity a clear outline and an approximate time in minutes were listed to help highlight the knowledge and length of time it would take to complete.

Data analysis
To define the success of the asynchronous component, performance data was analysed and evaluated. Data relating to the number of attempts and scores within the e-tivities from the cohort was recorded. The number of attempts at each e-tivity was divided into 3 categories: 0 attempts, 1-5 attempts, and 6+ attempts. All students who had attempted the content demonstrated a graded score for the formative elements within the e-tivity. All students with graded scores were counted as an attempt as there was evidence to suggest interaction with the e-tivity.
Student consent was given for the formative and summative grades to be analysed. This was used to measure the success of the asynchronous component and the flipped approach. After each face-to-face session attendance data was collected; attendance was categorised into attending two or more sessions or one or less. To measure the success of the approach this data was analysed together with the number of attempts at each e-tivity, self-reported academic confidence and the formative and summative grades. Results were evaluated to demonstrate an understanding of the benefits of the approach in academic skills delivery.
Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 17: May 2020 8 A survey was used to evaluate the asynchronous content and measure the academic confidence levels of students utilising both qualitative and quantitative questions. No qualitative comments were made by the students on the survey. The survey was conducted within a workshop; students not in attendance were offered an online version to complete. A total of 31 students completed the survey (62% response rate). Participation in the study was voluntary and the students who completed the survey had the option of having their data withdrawn from the research project upon request. The survey provided scores on students' academic confidence in the different academic skills abilities prior and post completion of asynchronous activity. The survey also asked students to provide preferred methods of developing academic skills and to evaluate the workshops and all e-tivities. The selfperceived academic confidence levels of students and summative grades were used to measure the success of the flipped approach in delivering academic skills.

Attendance
As expected, those who attended more sessions achieved better results. Those who attended two or more sessions (57.7% + /-1.43) had a significantly higher summative score than those who attended 1 or less (51.7% + /-2.73), (48), t=2.102, p=0.041 ( Figure 2). Even though the students who attended two or more sessions had a higher formative grade the improvement to the summative grade was greater. This demonstrated a significant improvement from the starting point of each student and added value to the summative scores of those who attended. This emphasises that the flipped approach is effective at improving summative grades.

Academic confidence
The measure of self-perceived confidence before and after each e-tivity was measured to define if students' self-perceived academic confidence had improved. Each student was asked to rate themselves before and after each e-tivity using a five-point scale (1 = very poor, 3 = average, 5 = excellent). The self-perceived academic confidence in each skill was recorded before and after each e-tivity, 62% (31 students) completed the survey (Table 3).
Overall the academic confidence improved in nearly a third of all students in each e-tivity.
Caution should always be exercised when interpreting self-perceived ratings (Castells et al., 2015) especially when the sample size is small. However, the e-tivities have been shown to improve some students' academic confidence which highlights that the asynchronous content was effective. Students who perceived themselves as poor, average, and good all showed improvements demonstrating that a range of student abilities improved their academic skills.  (n=2) The preferred methods of developing academic skills were recorded. Two students (6.5%) stated asynchronous content only, 12 students (38.7%) stated face-to-face only, and 17 students (54.8%) stated a mixture of both. This suggests that students preferred the active pedagogy of the flipped approach to develop their academic skills.

Discussion
Bishop and Verleger (2013) (Lage et al., 2000;Bergmann and Sams, 2007;Chuthapisith, et al., 2009;Wilson, 2013). The academic skills knowledge in the flipped design allowed the opportunity for the students to ask questions of the content learnt asynchronously, in the classroom. This research agrees with the metaanalysis conducted by Jenson et al. (2015) who investigated student exam performance using the flipped learning method. Although vigilance should be taken when interpreting quantitative results from a meta-analysis (Fagard et al., 1996), exam results improved by 6% in sessions where students actively participated compared to those recorded in a traditional lecture style format (Jenson et al., 2015). Therefore, it can only be an advantage to use this method in academic skills teaching to demystify the expectations of writing at undergraduate level.

Attendance
This research concluded that students who attended two or more sessions had a 6% significantly higher summative score than those who attended one or less. Even though students who attended two or more sessions had a higher formative score the improvement to the summative score was greater in the group who attended two or more sessions. This significant difference in the summative grade emphasises the importance of attendance in the approach even though there were only two hours of face-to-face contact. The flipped method allowed the tutor to support the learning process within the classroom rather than just dispensing knowledge. Chen et al. (2014) commented that a collaborative experience is facilitated by changing the classroom from a passive lecture to one that utilises the flipped method. Students can perceive academic skills as predominately tutor led activity therefore it is advantageous to shift to an approach which will facilitate individual learner needs (Smith et al., 2012). Farmer (2018) endorses that the flipped approach will be more successful using passive content to complete an active task than one that relies on the dissipation of passive content. It also helped that the content used in the sessions were subject specific and designed to incorporate the assessment.

Attempts at asynchronous content
Isolating the number of attempts at each e-tivity compared to the summative grade did not demonstrate a significant difference which may have be due to the low number of participants (2009) demonstrated a significant difference in the higher retention performance and level of enjoyment in students using the Xerte and flashmacromedia when comparing students who received the same information via a leaflet. This helps to understand that the use of this type of media tool had advantages which could have been due to its interactivity in addition to the integrated formative assessments.
Previous research using online learning to develop academic skills demonstrated that students completed two to four attempts to ensure they answered the questions correctly (Gunn et al., 2011). This could justify the frequency of attempts for each student as each etivity had a series of formative assessment tasks. Large amounts of attempts could also be due to students wanting to recall the subject specific content as this was the main transition of academic skills knowledge rendering the classroom as the place to practically apply the content learnt from the e-tivities. However, the data capture from the software was limited as only the number of attempts completed and the last attempted performance score was recorded. Therefore, an attempt would be registered once the software had been opened which does not automatically mean that the content had been attempted each time. It was anticipated that some students may have opened the content and read the details surrounding the task and closed the application as they did not have sufficient time to complete it, thus registering an attempt. To avoid counting attempts of student who had not interacted with the software, students registering attempts and showing performance data were used. More exploration of the students' interaction with the asynchronous material needs to be made as the survey did not investigate the platform the students chose to complete the content or verify the number of attempts. Although it does highlight that offering academic skills asynchronously is accessible and students interacted with the material.

Impact on summative grade
The largest difference in assessment grade was seen in the students who attempted e-tivities six or more times which could be down to students continuing to review the learning material which cemented their understanding. It also supports that the active classroom content is as important as the asynchronous content. Another explanation for the difference in summative grades when compared to those who did not attempt the e-tivities could be that those students who conformed to the teaching method are more motivated and studious regardless of the pedagogical approach.
Due to the placement of each session the research failed to demonstrate a significant difference between formative and summative grades. It is perceived that as the sessions incorporated skills to inform students' academic writing, the sessions helped to elevate the formative grade. Students are not clear of the boundaries or expectations of academic writing (Harwood and Hadley, 2004) therefore demystifying the expectations could have benefitted the formative scores.. The research showed that 66% (n=818) of attempts on the asynchronous resources were completed before the formative assessment submission date and 34% (n=421) of all attempts were completed between the formative and the summative submission date. The focus on the sessions were to inform students prior to the summative assessment using the formative assessment as the vehicle. However, the benefits to the formative assessment results have not been explored within the parameters of this research as there was not a valid benchmark embedded prior to the formative assessment. Other variables such as tutor feedback could have impacted on the summative grade with students gaining an understanding of the application of the academic skills as well as the flipped impact. Therefore, the research was not designed to suggest there would be a difference in the formative and summative grades.

Academic confidence
Although there was a decline in the number of attempts at each e-tivity as the e-tivities progressed this same relationship was not demonstrated in the academic confidence scores of students. This implies that although the attempts declined in number the perceived confidence levels gained remained static demonstrating that a third of students' perceived levels of confidence improved. The improvement of confidence could be a result of the pedagogical approach adopted in the research. This is further endorsed by Sander and Sanders ' (2006) research which suggested that the university experience will affect selfesteem, and this will in turn affect academic performance. Having the confidence to succeed at higher education is important and using the flipped approach can only compliment academic skills teaching.
The success of the flipped approach was confirmed by most students (53.3%) preferring a mixture of both online and face-to-face sessions to develop their academic skills. This agrees with the findings in a study by Pye et al. (2015) who found that 53% of students perceived that online systems maximised their classroom learning. The use of the flipped learning approach adopted for the research used software which was multifunctional and could be utilised pre, post, and during sessions (Harris, 2011). The inclusivity of the software (Hockings et al., 2012) was a benefit and the predominance of the text-based format (Harris, 2011) allowed transmission of academic skills content to be asynchronous which was later developed through the face-to-face sessions. The students who attempted a greater number of online activities and attended all sessions improved their confidence more than those who had engaged less. Interestingly, the confidence was gained more in the face-to-face sessions rather than the number of attempts on the asynchronous content. This suggests that if a student did not attend face-to-face sessions their perceived academic confidence was gained solely through the asynchronous content. The asynchronous content used to complement the flipped approach allowed students to control their learning habits and complete the tasks in their own time (Kamal and Radhakrishnan, 2019).
Delivering academic skills using the flipped approach relies on a change of culture. Freeman et al. (2014) suggest that active learning should be promoted as a preference rather than supporting an empirically validated practice, thus encouraging a culture which matures into a setting allowing students a comfortable environment to clarify information (Lage et al., 2000).
This approach feels the most natural form to transmit academic skills. Rosinski and Peeples, (2012) found that active pedagogies which purposively integrate interaction between students and tutors are more likely to create successful academic writers. The aspects of this research did not explore the impact of the delivery method on retention but Freeman et al. (2014)