The impact of flipping on students’ behavioural, emotional, cognitive and agentic engagement in academic writing skills

Flipping has been advocated as an instructional approach which impacts positively on students’ learning experience, improves their motivation, and most importantly raises their engagement in academic courses. My mixed-methods research study explored the impact of flipped instruction on the behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and agentic engagement of 57 Omani English as Foreign Language (EFL) students who were enrolled in my Academic Writing course.

My study results indicate that flipped instruction affects the four dimensions of students’ engagement positively. At the behavioural engagement level, students in the flipped writing classroom experience increased effort, improved concentration, persistence, communication and collaboration, and amelioration in their attitude to class attendance. Similarly, learners undergo cognitive growth, and develop self-regulatory strategies and meta-cognitive awareness. Emotionally, learners initially experience negative emotions such as anger and frustration, and then more positive emotions such as contentment and increased interest in the subject. Flipped instruction also seems to influence students’ autonomy and capacity to ask questions and express opinions. It appears, however, that this approach does not influence students’ ability to contribute to their own learning resources and activities.