Does participation affect performance in a flipped online course?

Paper in proceeding, 2018

In this paper, the relationship between student participation and performance in an online flipped course in nuclear reactor modelling is analyzed. In this course set-up, students follow
pre-recorded (asynchronous) lectures on the internet before attending on-line (synchronous) sessions twice a week during a seven-week period. Two types of on-line sessions are organized:
tutorials and wrap-up sessions. Attendance at these sessions is not compulsory. The tutorials aim at helping the students solve home assignments (on which the students are assessed), whereas the wrap-up sessions are structured around active student participation in the form of discussions. A cross-correlation analysis between results on the home assignments and attendance at the
asynchronous pre-recorded lectures or the synchronous tutorials revealed no significant correlation. There is, however, a significant correlation between results on the home assignments
and participation in the synchronous wrap-up sessions. This suggests that the wrap-up sessions help students to develop higher order thinking skills. This study highlights the importance of in-class active learning in a flipp ven if in the present case the in-class activities were organized on-line.