Advancing the understanding of the flipped classroom approach with students' perceptions of the learning environment: variation between academic disciplines

Abundant research supports the benefits of the flipped classroom approach on learning outcomes. Yet how students evaluate the flipped learning environment remains largely unknown. The present study aims to investigate 1) the students’ perceptions of their flipped learning and 2) whether disciplinary differences can be observed in students’ perceptions. Drawing upon the theoretical framework outlined in Brame (2013), our findings illustrated that students ( N = 407) from different disciplines do vary their evaluation of the flipped learning environment. Those whose academic disciplines related to the application of knowledge evaluated the four components – exposure, incentive, assessment, and activities – more positively than those whose academic disciplines focus more on theoretical exploration. It is noteworthy that how subject knowledge is developed does not influence perception of the flipped learning environment. Such findings can supplement the traditional outcome-based approach of flipped classroom research by understanding the learning environment. All in all, the findings can point to practical and theoretical implications for designing a flipped classroom environment, highlighting the needs in designing the learning environment. an abstract knowledge evaluated the four components – exposure, incentive, assessment, and activities – of the flipped classroom approach more positively than those who were studying in an academic discipline that emphasises theoretical explorations. In contrast, students who were studying in the disciplines that emphasise a single paradigm or multiple paradigms were found to evaluate the four components similarly. The following paragraphs discuss the possible underlying reasons for the differences obtained in each of the components. first exposure, which students required master foundation concept before the class. Students from the application of knowledge learning than those from pure experience in teaching and learning principles, case-based teaching and learning, web-assisted teaching and learning, and evaluation of eLearning and mLearning. He also has experience in designing educational tools. uReply is a classroom student response system developed under his supervision.

participating in the in-class learning activities. Hence, the techniques to motivate students to participate in the entire learning process are important in flipped learning.
The assessment component captures the importance of assessing students' understanding of the flipped classroom approach. Similar to traditional lecture-based learning, assessments assigned for students to complete during and after the learning process could assess students' level of understanding. Beyond this, the inclusion of preclass assignments in the flipped classroom approach, such as online quizzes and worksheets, could help students pinpoint their areas of weakness during their preparation for the class. The results obtained from these formative assessments could help students focus on these areas for improvement before class and could help teachers to focus on these areas during the lessons. Hence, the assessments can provide useful information for both teachers and students.
The activities component describes the final feature of the in-class learning activities in the flipped classroom approach. The philosophy of the flipped classroom approach started with the mastering of basic knowledge before the classroom through students' selflearning, thus leaving valuable class time for in-depth learning activities that promote higher-level learning. There is a wide range of learning activities available, such as peer discussion (Khanova et al., 2015), role play (Critz and Knight, 2013), and simulation (Schaffzin, 2016). The rationale for teachers choosing the classroom learning activities is to focus on deepening students' understanding and to help them use their skillsets to apply the knowledge.
These four components specify the content, resources, and learning activities in the flipped classroom approach, describing the common components in the learning environment that teachers could pay attention to when designing the course (Phillips, McNaught and Kennedy, 2010). Brame (2013) provided an important framework to help understand the flipped learning environment. The first aim of the present project is to investigate the flipped learning environment with Brame's (2013) theoretical model. The four componentsexposure, incentive, assessment, and activitiesare required to naturally vary in importance according to the teaching purposes. For example, distributing readings is more relevant for the pre-class learning activity of a writing class, whereas watching videos is more relevant for a listening class. These variations may partly explain Ng and Lam Advancing the understanding of the flipped classroom approach with students' perceptions of the learning environment: variation between academic disciplines Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 24: September 2022 6 why the findings on the flipped classroom approach do not all show significant improvement (e.g., Davies, Dean and Ball, 2013;Mason, Shuman and Cook, 2013). The results could possibly be improved by forming a supporting team with expertise in the flipped classroom approach. The supporting teams could ensure that the teaching practice can fulfil the basic requirements of the flipped classroom approach by giving suggestions on the curriculum design of the flipped learning environment.

The possible disciplinary differences
The second aim of this project is to investigate whether academic disciplines influence

The study background
The data used in this paper is part of a large collaborative project in Hong Kong that form a composite score of exposure, incentive, assessment, and activities. The higher the values, the higher the extent that the students endorse these components. The reliabilities of all four components were satisfactory: Cronbach's α = .84 for exposure, Cronbach's α = .80 for incentive, Cronbach's α = .78 for activities, Cronbach's α = .79 for assessment.

Results
We first followed the classification of Biglan (1973) to classify the academic disciplines as pure (N = 238) and applied (N = 169). The pure disciplines include courses from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Social Science, whereas the applied disciplines include courses from the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Engineering, and the Faculty of Business. Then we computed the mean and standard deviation of the four components: exposure, incentive, activities, and assessment (see Table 1). In general, students whose academic discipline belonged to applied were consistently rated higher in exposure ( Table 2).
For the sake of simplicity, the general results are summarised in Table 3.

Ng and Lam
Advancing the understanding of the flipped classroom approach with students' perceptions of the learning environment: variation between academic disciplines Note. M and SD represent mean and standard deviation.

Ng and Lam
Advancing the understanding of the flipped classroom approach with students' perceptions of the learning environment: variation between academic disciplines Note. M and SD represent mean and standard deviation.

Ng and Lam
Advancing the understanding of the flipped classroom approach with students' perceptions of the learning environment: variation between academic disciplines The applied disciplines are significantly higher than the pure disciplines.
There are no significant differences between soft and hard disciplines.

General discussion
The present project attempts to enrich the understanding of the process of the flipped learning approach. Specifically, the project investigates students' perceptions of the flipped learning environment and whether and how their academic disciplines affect students' evaluation of the flipped learning environment. The present project revealed that students from different academic disciplines differed in their perception of the learning environment when the flipped classroom approach was incorporated. It is noteworthy that the practical value of the academic disciplines does matter in the students' perception of the flipped learning environment, while the epistemological characteristics of the academic disciplines do not matter.
Students who were studying in an academic discipline that emphasises the application of abstract knowledge evaluated the four componentsexposure, incentive, assessment, and activitiesof the flipped classroom approach more positively than those who were studying in an academic discipline that emphasises theoretical explorations. In contrast, students who were studying in the disciplines that emphasise a single paradigm or multiple paradigms were found to evaluate the four components similarly. The following paragraphs discuss the possible underlying reasons for the differences obtained in each of the components.
The first component is exposure, in which students were required to master the foundation concept before the class. Students from the academic disciplines that emphasise the application of knowledge rated the pre-class learning opportunity more favourably than those from the pure disciplines. This illustrated that students in the applied disciplines The present project revealed that students' perception of the learning environment of the flipped classroom approach varies between different academic disciplines. Future research could also investigate the disciplinary differences of the flipped classroom approach. Yet, as in other cross-disciplinary research, it is a challenge to minimise the effect of confounding variables while testing the disciplinary differences. An overly stringent control will dilute the disciplinary difference and it would not even be possible in a real-life educational context to fulfil the diverse needs of curriculums and institutions, especially in the variable of assigning scores for pre-class learning. Future research could consider testing the disciplinary differences with the control of a more standardised scoring system. Such understanding has promising potential for curriculum design using the flipped classroom approach, which in turn provides insights into maximising the benefit of the flipped classroom approach.
All in all, the current research provides evidence for the study of the learning environment.
In fact, another important area that would benefit from future research is the investigation of how to persuade teachers to overcome the challenges of adopting the flipped classroom approach. When flipping a classroom, teachers are usually required to shift their mindset, such as adopting a new role of facilitator in the classroom (Lage, Platt and Treglia, 2000) and redesigning their curriculum (Kim et al., 2014). Future research could further this line of research to persuade teachers to adopt the flipped classroom approach in their classes.

Conclusion
To conclude, our study advanced the understanding of both the flipped classroom approach from the learning environment perspective and how academic disciplines influence students' perceptions of the learning environment. In general, students from applied disciplines rated the components of the flipped classroom higher. The results are not intended to discourage educators who teach pure disciplines to give up on the flipped classroom approach. Instead, when adopting the flipped classroom approach to teach pure disciplines, some practical modifications can be made. For example, instead of focusing on applying the learnt concept, other in-depth teaching and learning activities can be provided for the students from the pure disciplines, such as Mathematics (Bhagat,