A brainstorming flipped classroom approach for improving

Thinking Skills and Creativity 38 (2020) 100747
Available online 15 October 2020
1871-1871/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A brainstorming flipped classroom approach for improving
students’ learning performance, motivation, teacher-student
interaction and creativity in a civics education class
Meng-Ning Tsai a
, Yu-Fan Liao b
, Yu-Lin Chang a
, Hsueh-Chih Chen a,c,d,
*
a
Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
b
Taipei Municipal Jinhua Junior High School, Taiwan
c
Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, Chinese Language and Technology Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
d
MOST AI Biomedical Research Center, Taiwan
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Brainstorming
Creativity
Flipped classroom
Motivation
Teaching and learning
A B S T R A C T
A flipped classroom approach is a teaching/learning strategy and mode in which the inclass direct
teacher instructing and the out-of-class students homework are switched. Previous studies have
mostly used undergraduates as their participants, less of them used K-12 students; and used
flipped classrooms in the teaching of core subjects, while studies of the flipped classroom for
humanities cultivation are few. The present study has develop a brainstorming flipped classroom
approach for civics education, in which the design was that the students read the course content
before class and then the teacher guided the class discussions with the 635 brainstorming
approach. The present study recruited 56 junior high school students and implemented a qua
siexperiment for a civics course over a period of 6 weeks; the experimental group used the
brainstorming flipped classroom approach, and the control group used the direct teaching in
struction approach. The results show that the flipped classroom can effectively increase the
students’ performance, learning motivation for civics, citizen participation, better teacher-student
interactions, peer interactions, and creativity than the control group. While the students are still
able to acquire the basic knowledge required for the civics course. The brain storming flipped
classroom approach developed by present study is not only a help to teaching of civic education,
but also provides a firm structure for course design and pre-class learning for the whole learning
process. The 635 brainstorming flipped classroom approach has pedagogical use in teaching
practice and can be applied in many subjects.
1. Introduction
Recently, educational scholars have begun to emphasize the importance of student-centered learning, which claims that teachers
are not only the knowledge providers but also the facilitators of learning and that teachers should encourage students to construct the
knowledge by themselves (Jonassen & Easter, 2012). A study found that student-centered learning increased the autonomy,
achievement, and motivation of learning among students (Smit, Brabander, & Martens, 2014). Henceforth, the educational paradigm
* Corresponding author at: Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University. Education College
Building, Room 612, No. 162, Sec. 1, Heping E. Rd., Da-an District, Taipei City 10610, Taiwan.
E-mail address: chcjyh@gmail.com (H.-C. Chen).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Thinking Skills and Creativity
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tsc
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100747
Received 19 July 2020; Received in revised form 27 September 2020; Accepted 29 September 2020

2
has shifted from the traditional mode to a new trend, some new teaching approaches are being developed and have improved the
students’ performance even more (e.g. Chang, Hsiao, & Barufaldi, 2006; Author, 2013, 2018). In particular, the flipped classroom
approach has been claimed to be a novel and effective teaching approach in many educational studies; in the flipped classroom, the
class becomes a place not only for teacher instruction but also for increased teacher-student interactions and peer interactions between
students (Teo, Tan, Yan, Teo, & Yeo, 2014; Zhang, Ma, & Liu, 2014).
The core concept of the flipped classroom approach is to change the learning pattern for students, where the traditional pattern of
“listening in class, solving problems at home (homework)” is flipped into “listening at home, solving problems in class”. Before class,
students have to preview the basic knowledge, and in class, students have discussions on related issues by using the basic knowledge
learned at home to find potential solutions, and the teacher leads the deep discussion (Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Lai & Hwang, 2016).
Many studies have verified that the flipped classroom approach can promote the autonomy of learning among students, can enable
students to have more time for interactions and discussion with peers and teachers, and can increase the learning motivation as well as
learning achievement (Forsey, Low, & Glance, 2013; Missildine, Fountain, Summers, & Gosselin, 2013).
However, as reviews of flipped classroom research have indicated (see Akçayır & Akçayır, 2018; Turan & Akdag-Cimen, 2019) that
most flipped classroom studies used undergraduates as their participants, less of them used K-12 students. Another research area
required more attention is the incorporation of flipped classroom in humanities education. Previous successful cases of flipped
classroom have focused on content subjects, for example, mathematics, science, or skill training related subjects, only a few studies
have attempted to apply flipped classroom approach to humanities education (Jong, Chen, Tam, & Chai, 2019), even these studies did
ever tried, the results were only limited to learning performance but didn’t versify the help of flipped classroom for learning ability and
learning motivation of other subjects.
Take civics education for example, it is difficult to promote civics education in school (Musil, 2012). There are two reasons. First,
the importance of civics education is still less weighted than other core subjects, such as mathematics and sciences, schools rather
invest less resources for civics subject, which shows in the weekly course hours; second, teaching/learning pattern of civics education is
mostly the teacher instruction but less the practice experience, as a consequence, students are less possible to link what they have
learned in civics class to what they actually encounter in daily life (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008; Matto, McCartney, Bennion, & Simpson,
2017).
More and more educational workers use flipped classroom approach, however, the influence of flipped classroom for K-12 students
is still hard to guarantee. Besides, it is a heavy loading for teachers to develop different teaching methods for respective learning
subjects, as well as it is for students to adapt to different teaching methods (Awidi & Paynter, 2019). To address this need, present study
aimed at implementing a flipped classroom approach with brainstorming (Osborn, 1963) in civic course for K-12 children, and
developing it for humanities education.
The brainstorming flipped classroom approach of the present study could help teachers to conduct the civics course more efficiently
within the limited hours and could also increase the students’ learning achievement and motivation. With this approach, the students
were asked to preview the lesson in an e-learning platform before class, and in class, the teacher guided students to have discussions on
specific topics by using brainstorming and creativity skills, so that they could find more potential solutions for these questions together,
and this approach also facilitated the teacher-student and peer interactions. In addition to the learning achievement and learning
motivation, the changes of attitude regarding citizen participation, creativity, and teacher-student interactions were investigated in
the present study.
Fig. 1. The learning mode of the flipped classroom.
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2. Literature review
2.1. The flipped classroom
The mainstream mode of teaching has been changed gradually in recent years, from the traditional teacher instruction mode to the
student-centered mode, where, rather than passively receiving the knowledge, the students are encouraged to actively use what they
learn and to think deeper and further (Agbatogun, 2014). Among the teaching/learning modes, the flipped classroom approach has
been considered a potentially effective approach; the traditional teaching instruction mode provides knowledge in one direction,
whereas the flipped classroom approach pushes students to use more of their acknowledge in deeper thinking and further problem
solving, which allows teachers to guide students to put their learning into practice and increase their learning performance (Bergman &
Sams, 2012; Moran & Milsom, 2015).
The concept of the flipped classroom was first proposed by Bergmann and Sams (2012), and it focused on switching the order of
“acquisition of basic knowledge” and “practice of knowledge application” as Fig. 1, which means that students preview the lesson to
acquire the basic knowledge by themselves through a video or web-based tutorials before the class, and allows teachers more time to
facilitate further discussions or practices in class, so that students can develop a deeper learning and apply the learning results
(Missildine et al., 2013).
The flipped classroom has many forms, but in general, it has the features below (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015; Hwang, Lai, & Wang,
2015): (1) the activity out of class changes from doing homework to self-learning before the class; (2) the teacher can lead the dis
cussion and problem solving in class; (3) the flipped classroom allows more teacher-student interactions and more interactions be
tween peers; (4) using technology, such as a teaching video or streaming media, helps students to learn the basic knowledge easier and
more efficiently. In general, the flipped classroom has advantages, including the following: self-paced learning for students, active
learning attitude for students, efficient time management in the classroom, teachers are able to acquire an understanding of the
students’ learning progress, and the problem solving abilities of students are improved (Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Hao, 2016; Lai &
Hwang, 2016).
The flipped classroom approach has generally been used in teaching core subjects, for example, mathematics (Bhagat, Chang, &
Chang, 2016; Lai & Hwang, 2016), chemistry (Bergmann & Sams, 2012), biology (Gallo, 2014), history (Westermann, 2014), English
(Hung, 2015), and in teaching applied science, for example, STEM education (Newman, Morris, Cnnor, & Lamendola, 2014),
multimedia and informatics (Enfield, 2013), computer programming (Jarvis, Halvorson, Sadeque, & Johnston, 2014), nursing edu
cation (Kowalski & Homer, 2015), and pharmacy education (Pierce & Fox, 2012). Many studies have generally verified that the flipped
classroom approach has a positive influence on the students’ learning performance and autonomy; however, less of those were for the
subjects related to humanities cultivation.
2.2. Challenges of civics education
Civics literacy is essential for self-government for a country. A citizen with civics literacy does not only know about the law and
government operations but also about how to interact with others, how to join the civics movement, to communicate with admin
istration departments, then to seek public interest (Matto et al., 2017). If people lack civics literacy and are not interested in public
affairs, the government will not be able to promote the policies and plans, not to mention the actual needs of people (Hudson, 2012).
However, in early times, civics education was not emphasized as much as it should be; instead of carrying out the civics courses in
the regular class schedule, most of time, the civics class was replaced with nonformal forms, such as weekly assemblies or extracur
ricular activities (Ng & Leung, 2004). Recently, many scholars have advocated for the importance of civics education (Jong et al.,
2019), and the American Political Science Association has also attached greater importance to civics education in the school, which has
increased the discussion by educational researchers about how to effectively manage civics education in the school curriculum
(Starkey, 2000; Torney-Purta, Schwille, & Amadeo, 1999).
Despite the importance of civics education increasing in the educational side and the government side, many challenges and
problems remains in regard to the pedagogical practice. First, the traditional civics education has put particular emphasis on providing
factual knowledge, such as the structure and functions of the government but has focused less on the influence of politics on the people
and the power of the people to influence public affairs (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008). Second, civics education is weighted less than other
subjects, some schools have even replaced the civics education classes with other subjects because these schools wanted to arrange
more time for reading class and math class (Rentner et al., 2006). Third, except for the civics education course, schools are seldom
provided with other learning resources or courses to link the knowledge gained in the civics education class, and seldom provide
trainings or course development, or even an encouragement system for civics education teachers (Matto et al., 2017). The afore
mentioned challenges are not only for the schools in western counties but are also seen at the schools in Asia (Ng & Leung, 2004).
With the changes in social and media communication, encouraged educational scholars to promote the evolution of civics edu
cation. Scholars have suggested that civics education courses should include practical experience to develop skills and experience
related to civic activities for students (Yang, 2012); they have also suggested that learning motivation can be increased by using the
help of technology products or media (Haste & Hogan, 2012).
Therefore, the present study aimed at using a new teaching mode for civics education; by combining the flipped classroom
approach and the brainstorming method, students could acquire basic knowledge through online media, and the teacher could inspire
more interactions and discussions among students with brainstorming to achieve the goals of civics education. Additionally, present
study has investigated the effectiveness of the flipped classroom for the following learning related goals: (1) learning performance (2)
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learning motivations (3) attitude of civics engagement (4) creativity of students, (5) quality of the teacher-student relationship, (6)
quality of the peer relationship.
3. A brainstorming flipped classroom approach
3.1. Brainstorming approach
The brainstorming approach was first developed by Alex Osborn (1963), and it is a discussion method intended to inspire creativity
and thinking; it has the characteristics of using multiple ways of thinking, breaking old thoughts, associating different concepts,
expanding the border of thoughts, and seeking problem solving (Honig, 2001). The implementation of a brainstorming method usually
involves a group, and the group members are free to propose relevant ideas for the topic, and then, together, they reclassify all the
ideas, and new viewpoints and answers emerge (Al-Maghawry, 2012). The key point of brainstorming is that no matter how practical
the ideas are, no one is allowed to criticize any idea or interrupt the thinking threads; the group members have to push and force
themselves to think of any possible ideas (Jarwan, 2005).
According to Al-Khatib (2012), with the guidance of the teacher, the brainstorming approach could be used as a teaching strategy
and could effectively develop and increase the communication skills of students; it could also provide students with different view
points and could improve the students’ thinking ability and decision making. Previous empirical studies have found that the brain
storming approach could also increase the leaning performance and problem solving abilities of students; the participants of these
studies included high school students and undergraduates from different departments (Al-Shammari, 2015; Amoush, 2015; Asundi &
Rao, 2018; Fang, 2013; Ghabanchi & Behrooznia, 2014; Ryoo, Molfese, & Brown, 2018).
As the brainstorming approach is generally used, different patterns and forms are developed; however, all of them share the same
rules and are essentially similar. The “635 Brainstorming” approach used in present study is one of the patterns; it was proposed by
Rohrbach (1969). The main process is as follows (Fig. 2): 6 runs in total, 6 members propose 3 ideas every run and completes a single
run in 5 minutes, which will develop and inspire more ideas (Glier, Schmidt, Linsey, & McAdams, 2011; Hsu, Wang, Lin, & Chang,
2018).
The creative flipped classroom approach of the present study follows the basic structure of the flipped classroom, emphasizes the
order of “students self-learning then teacher guiding” and integrates 635 brainstorming into the class activities, and eventually de
velops the “brainstorming flipped classroom approach”. The teacher guides students to think about and practice with the course
material in different ways and directs students to work on related topics using their creativity skills; therefore both the completion of
the course goals and creative thinking can occur in the class.
3.2. Taipei CooC-Cloud
The present study used the e-learning platform “Taipei CooC-Cloud”, which was developed by the Department of Education, Taipei,
Taiwan. “Taipei CooC-Cloud” displays the learning material in videos. The videos summarize and highlight the lessons of the textbook
by using tables, lists, illustrations with color changing, animations, and recordings of the teacher’s instructions (Fig. 3). The material is
designed and edited by in-service teachers and is examined by professors or experts from subjects related domains. This e-learning
platform has over 3,000 videos; the length of a single video is approximately 5 to 10 minutes, and users can choose the video playing
speed or can repeatedly watch the video.
According to the topics of the civics course, the present study chose six videos entitled “Political participants for citizens”,
“Definition and function of election”, “Principles of election”, “Procedure of election”, “The election of our public servants”, and
“Voting”. The students have to watch the videos to self-learn the basic knowledge of the related topics before every class. Then, in the
class, students have to participate in the class discussions and activities.
Fig. 2. The process of 635 brainstorming.
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4. Method
4.1. Participants
To make sure we had a sufficient number of participants, we used G* Power 3 to calculate the necessary sample size (Faul, Erd
felder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007). The result revealed it requires 50 participants to achieve a large effect (0.7) with 0.90 power (α =
0.05). Therefore, the participants were two 7th grade classes in a high school in Taipei; one class is the experiment group and the other
is the control group. The civics course content for the two groups were the same. The experimental group had 28 students, 53.6% were
males, and the teaching method of the experimental group was the brainstorming flipped classroom approach. The control group had
28 students as well, 46.4% were males, and the teaching method of the control group was the direct teaching instruction approach.
To verify the influence of civic education level to the teaching experiments, present study has taken the learning achievement
scores of civic course of last semester to independent samples t-test, results of t-test showed that there was not significant difference of
civic education level between two groups (t(54) = 0.172, p > .05). The study was reviewed and approved by the Research ethics
committee of National Taiwan Normal University. All participants were informed of the procedures and gave their informed consent
before the experiment began.
4.2. Instruments
4.2.1. Assessment of learning achievement for civics education
4.2.1.1. Basic civics knowledge test: memorizing and understanding. To assess what students remember and understand in their civics
course, the researchers have edited two versions of tests with equal difficulty; the items were sampled from the items pool provided by
the publishers of the textbooks, which included one version for the pretest and the other for the posttest; the highest score was 100, and
a higher score indicated better comprehension and recognition of the basic knowledge.
4.2.1.2. Basic civics knowledge test: application. To understand the practice and analysis of civics knowledge for students, the re
searchers edited learning sheets for each course topic, and the students completed them weekly after the course. The present study used
the Rubrics method to indicate the test score, with two teachers other than the researchers as raters, and the answers were scored
according to the Rubrics indicators, from 0 to 100. The correlation coefficients of the two raters for all learning sheets were from .873
to .949 (ps < .001), which indicates a good scorer reliability. The final score of learning sheets was the mean of the two raters, and a
higher score indicates a better level of knowledge analysis and a better application of the civics courses.
4.2.2. Civics learning motivation scale
The motivation for learning civics was measured with “Learning motivation scale for primary and junior high school students” by
Author (2010); the scale has 35 items. The present study measured the learning motivation for civics education, therefore, it has
specified the learning subject as a civics course in instruction, to ask students to answer the questions based on their motivation to learn
about the civics subject. The item was rated on a 5-point Likert scale. A higher score indicated a higher motivation to learn in the civics
course. The Cronbach’s α for present study was .96 (Liu et al., 2010), which shows a good reliability. The pretest of Cronbach’s α was
.946, and the posttest value was .976.
4.2.3. The questionnaire of attitude toward citizen participation
The attitude for citizen participation was measured with “the questionnaire of attitude toward citizen participation” by Hu (2015).
Fig. 3. Interface of the Taipei CooC-Cloud.
M.-N. Tsai et al.

6
The questionnaire has 26 items and every item was rated on a 5-point Likert scale, where higher scores indicate a higher willing to
engage in civics activities. The Cronbach’s α was .924 (Hu, 2015), so the questionnaire has good reliability. For the present study, the
pretest Cronbach’s α was .888, and the posttest value was .933.
4.2.4. Chinese Remote Association Test (C-RAT)
The present study used the Chinese Remote Association Test (C-RAT) by Author (2004) as the measurement of creativity. The
pattern of C-RAT was that every item has three two-characters Chinese words, but these three words have one Chinese character in
common, for example, 女 “生”, “生”氣, and 產“生”. However, the item hides this common character but instead shows the rest of the
different characters, e.g., “女”, “氣”, “產”, and the participant has to find their common character and write it down. One correct
answer equals one score, and a higher score indicates a better ability of remote associating and creativity. Author (2004) developed
two forms of C-RAT, in which one is for the pretest and another is for the posttest. Every form has 30 items, and the highest score is 30.
The C-RAT and “Creativity Assessment Packet” (Lin & Wang, 1994) had a significant and positive correlation (Author, 2004), which
indicates that C-RAT can measure creativity. In the present study, the scores of the pretest and posttest had a significant and positive
correlation (r = .443, p < .001), which shows that the C-RAT has stable retest reliability.
4.2.5. The questionnaire of teacher-student interaction
The present study used the questionnaire of teacher-student interaction by Shih (2007) as the measurement of the teacher-student
relationship; the questionnaire has 19 items and was rated on a 5-point Likert scale, where a higher score indicates a better interaction
between the teacher and student. The Cronbach’s α for this questionnaire was .93, which indicated a good reliability (Shih, 2007); in
present study, the Cronbach’s α of the pretest was .947 and that of the posttest was .957.
4.2.6. The scale of interactions between peer for schoolchildren
The present study used the scale of interactions between peers for schoolchildren by Lo and Chen (2005) as the measurement of the
peer relationship for a child in the class. The scale has 40 items and was rated on a 5-point Likert scale, where a higher score indicates
better interactions between a child and the peers. The Cronbach’s α was .932 (Lo & Chen, 2005), which indicates a good reliability. In
the present study, the Cronbach’s α of the pretest was .908 and that of the posttest was .954.
Fig. 4. Diagram of the experimental design.
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4.3. Experimental procedure
The present study used the topic “Political participation and election” for the 8th
grader’s civics course as the teaching topic. The
entire teaching experiment was 6 weeks, and the whole procedure is shown as Fig. 4. First, the two groups completed all the pretests,
then the teacher introduced the teaching outline and targets for students.
The experimental group used the brainstorming flipped classroom approach. Out of class, the students of experimental group
watched the video of the weekly subject on the website of Taipei CooC-Cloud at home before the class, and completed the part of
memorizing and comprehension. Then, in class, the students used the knowledge they acquired at home in the class activities, and the
teacher used “635 brainstorming” as the teaching strategy to lead students in discussing the related issues. The control group used the
direct teaching instruction approach, i.e., the traditional mode. For the control group, the teacher instructed on the learning material
and helped students to memorized and understand the material in class, and then gave students homework or learning sheets to
practice and think for themselves at home or out of class. After 6 weeks, the program finished and the students completed all the
posttests.
5. Results
5.1. Analysis of learning achievement
5.1.1. Analysis of the basic civics knowledge test
The one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was employed to evaluate the student’s learning result of basic civics knowledge for
the experimental group and the control group. Table 1 shows the results of the basic civics knowledge learning tests, including the
pretests and the posttests of the two groups. The adjusted means were 72.77 for the experimental group and 80.12 for the control
group. This shows that the posttest scores of the two groups were not significantly different (F (1, 53) = 3.103, p = .084, η2
= .060); the
student’s memorizing and understanding performance for the civics course was not different between the experimental group and the
control group.
5.1.2. Analysis of the civics knowledge application test
Since the learning sheet is for students after the learning has been completed, the present study has used the final score of the civics
subject of the last semester as the covariate for the analysis of covariance. Table 2 shows the results of the civics knowledge application
test of the two groups. The adjusted means were 90.49 for the experimental group and 80.45 for the control group. The finding in
dicates that scores of the two groups were significantly different (F(1, 51) = 36.506, p < .001, η2
= .417); the experimental group had a
better civics knowledge application ability than the control group.
5.2. Analysis of civics learning motivation
The Levene’s test for determining the homogeneity of the regression was violated (F = 5.865, p = .019), suggesting that was
appropriate for the two-way ANOVA. The interactions between variables were significant (F(1, 50) = 16.726, p < .01); therefore, the
present study examined the simple main effect within the group as well as the simple main effect between groups; Table 3 lists the
results. For the between group comparison, the simple main effect of the pretest was not significant between the two groups (F(1, 100)
= 0.253, p = .616), but the simple main effect of the posttest was significant between the two groups (F(1, 100) = 11.971, p < .001, η2
= .107), indicating that the learning motivation of the posttest for the experimental group (M = 4.29, SD = 0.61) was significantly
higher than that for the control group (M = 3.58, SD = 0.55). Regarding the within group comparison, for the control group, the pretest
and posttest of learning motivation were not significantly different (F(1, 50) = 0.010, p = .912, η2
= .000). However, for the
experimental group, the pretest and posttest of learning motivation were significantly different (F(1, 50) = 21.660, p < .001, η2
=
0.302), where the posttest of learning motivation (M = 4.29, SD = 0.61) was significantly higher than the pretest of learning moti
vation (M = 3.67, SD = 0.62) for the experimental group, suggesting that the brainstorming flipped classroom approach of the present
study has increased the learning motivation for the civics course for students.
5.3. Analysis of attitude toward citizen participation
The Levene’s test for determining the homogeneity of the regression was violated (F = 6.483, p = .014), suggesting that the two-
way ANOVA was appropriate. The interaction between the variables was significant (F(1, 48) = 21.186, p < .001); therefore, the
present study examined the simple main effect within the group as well as the simple main effect between groups; Table 4 shows the
results. For the comparison between groups, the simple main effect of the pretest was not significant between the two groups (F(1, 96)
Table 1
One-way ANCOVA results of the basic civics knowledge test
Group N Pretest Mean(SD) Posttest Mean(SD) Adjusted mean(SD) of posttest F η2
Experimental group 28 39.96(15.83) 72.75(15.85) 72.77(2.93) 3.103 .060
Control group 28 40.64(11.97) 80.14(15.12) 80.12(2.93)
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= 0.005, p = .946 η2
= .000); however, the simple main effect of the posttest was significant between the two groups (F(1, 96) =
20.516, p < .001, η2
= .176), where the posttest of attitude toward citizen participation for the experimental group (M = 4.27, SD =
0.54) was significantly higher than that for the control group (M = 3.60, SD = 0.49). Regarding the comparison within the group, for
the control group, there was no significant difference between the pretest and the posttest of attitude toward citizen participation (F(1,
48) = 0.557, p = .459 η2
= .012); however, for the experimental group, the pretest and posttest of attitude toward citizen participation
were significantly different (F(1, 48) = 33.913, p < .001, η2
= .414), where the posttest (M = 4.29, SD = 0.54) was higher than the
pretest (M = 3.60, SD = 0.49), suggesting that the brainstorming flipped classroom approach of the present study has increased the
attitude toward citizen participation for students.
5.4. Analysis of C-RAT
Table 5 shows the results of the one-way ANCOVA analysis for C-RAT. The adjusted means were 12.87 for the experimental group
and 9.81 for the control group. The findings show that the posttest scores of the two groups were significantly different (F(1, 53) =
19.964, p < .001, η2
= .209), where the students who received the brainstorming flipped classroom teaching approach had better
remote association ability than those who received the traditional teaching mode.
5.5. Analysis of teacher-student interaction
Table 6 shows the one-way ANCOVA results of the teacher-student interaction. The adjusted means were 4.41 for the experimental
group and 3.67 for the control group. The results show that the posttest scores of the two groups were significantly different (F(1, 50) =
36.034, p < .001, η2
= .419), where the class of the brainstorming flipped classroom approach of the present study had better teacher-
Table 2
One-way ANCOVA results of civics knowledge application test
Group N Civics score of last semester Mean(SD) Learning Sheet
Mean(SD)
Adjusted mean(SD) of Learning Sheet F η2
Experimental group 27 88.53(6.78) 90.25 (5.47) 90.49 (1.18) 36.506*** .417
Control group 27 89.15(6.70) 80.69 (10.10) 80.45 (1.18)
Note. ***p < .001
Table 3
Simple main-effect analysis results of learning motivation
Variables SS df MS F η2
Group (between) Pretest 0.08 1 0.08 0.253 .003
Posttest 3.93 1 3.93 11.971*** .107
Error 32.85 100 0.33
Test time (within) Experimental group 2.75 1 2.75 21.660*** .302
Control group 0.01 1 0.01 0.010 .000
Error 6.35 50 0.13
Note. ***p < .001
Table 4
Simple main-effect analysis results for attitude toward citizen participation
Variables SS df MS F η2
Groups (between) Pretest 0.01 1 0.01 0.005 .000
Posttest 5.61 1 5.61 20.516*** .176
Error 26.26 96 0.27
Test time (within) Experimental group 4.68 1 4.68 33.913*** .414
Control group 0.08 1 0.08 0.557 .012
Error 6.62 48 0.14
Note. ***p < .001
Table 5
One-way ANCOVA results of C-RAT
Group N Pretest mean(SD) Posttest mean(SD) Adjusted mean(SD) of posttest F η2
Control group 28 7.21(2.80) 10.00 (3.15) 9.81 (0.58)
Note. ***p < .001
M.-N. Tsai et al.

9
students interactions than the class of the traditional teaching approach.
5.6. Analysis of interactions between peers for schoolchildren
Table 7 shows the one-way ANCOVA results of the interactions between peers for schoolchildren. The adjusted means were 4.18 for
the experimental group and 3.71 for the control group. The results indicate that the posttest scores of the two groups were significantly
different (F(1, 49) = 22.857, p < .001, η2
= .318), where the students who received the brainstorming flipped classroom approach of
the present study had better peer interactions than the students who received the traditional teaching approach.
6. Discussion and conclusions
To promote the self-learning for students and to improve the teacher-students interaction in the civics class, the present study
developed a brainstorming flipped classroom approach and helped teachers to effectively carry out the course in limited hours. To
examine the effect of the brainstorming flipped classroom approach, the present study recruited junior high school students as par
ticipants, and used a quasi-experimental design in a civics course, which includes the brainstorming flipped classroom approach for the
experimental group and the direct teaching instruction approach for the control group, and the learning performance and related
performance of the groups after 6 weeks of the experiment are compared.
The result of learning performance, after the 6-week experiment, show that the experimental group had significant learning
achievement of basic civics knowledge (t(27) = 8.728, p < .001), and the learning performance of the experimental group was as good
as that of control group. Even though students of the experimental group have learned civics knowledge in the online platform, their
comprehension and recognition of civics knowledge were as good as the students of control group, i.e., the acquiring of knowledge was
not decreased without the teacher’s instruction. For the application of civics knowledge, the experimental group had a significant
improvement after 6 weeks, and the extent of the improvement was far higher in the experimental group than in the control group,
which indicates that the brainstorming flipped classroom approach was not only useful for inspiring the class discussion but also for
increasing the ability of applying civics knowledge and problem solving; the results agreed with the results of past studies that the
flipped classroom approach can strengthen the high level cognition and practical ability (Abeysekera & Dawson, 2015; Hung, 2015).
Except for the effective learning performance, the learning motivation and attitude toward citizen participation also been increased
after 6 weeks of using the flipped classroom approach, where both increased even more in the experimental group than in the control
group. The flipped classroom has helped students to learn, increased their interest in the course and their motivation for civics ed
ucation, and has inspired students to engage in citizen participation. Similarly, the in-class discussions increased the frequency of
teacher-students and peer interactions, where the experimental group had better teacher-student relationships and peer relationships
than the control group; the flipped classroom has improved the interaction quality between the teacher and students, and the quality
between the peers.
Last and interestingly, after the flipped classroom, the experimental group had better remote association ability than control group;
the 6 weeks course did not offer training on creativity skills in the experimental group; however, the students of the experimental group
eventually had higher scores on the creativity test. One possible explanation is that the brainstorming flipped classroom approach has
pushed students to practice brainstorming during the discussion, which made the students proficient at creativity skills as well; the
other possibility is that, as past studies have found, the presentation of the flipped classroom material, such as videos, is more creative
itself and can improve the students’ creativity (Martin & Schwartz, 2014), the process of discussion can also improve the students’
creativity, especially the performance of fluency, flexibility, and novelty (Al-Zahrani, 2015), and the performance on the remote
associate test. Although some previous studies have claimed that using flipped classroom for K-12 children was more difficult (Akçayır
& Akçayır, 2018; Turan & Akdag-Cimen, 2019), present study found that the brainstorming flipped classroom approach can effectively
increase K-12 students the application ability of civics knowledge, the learning motivation for civics education, and interest in civics
participation.
In the other hand, the previous problem of designing a flipped classroom course was mostly about the effectiveness of class dis
cussions; if the class discussion was not effective, the influence of a flipped classroom course was then limited (Fautch, 2015; Hwang
et al., 2015). This problem is generally seen in Taiwan or in other Asia areas; in these places, courses are usually given with the mode of
direct teacher instructing, and teachers and students do not have much chance for interaction, and students are used to not asking
questions (Tsai & Hwang, 2013). The brain storming flipped classroom approach developed by present study is not only a help to
teaching of civic education, but also provides a firm structure for course design and pre-class learning for the whole learning process.
The approach of present study gives a clear direction for teachers to arrange learning activities for humanities education, because the
rule and instruction of 635 brainstorming approach is simple and does not need much effort for students to learn the procedure of doing
class activities; teachers only need to setup the topics and lead group discussion, and have no need to spend lots of time on developing
Table 6
One-way ANCOVA results of teacher-student interaction
Control group 25 3.69(0.68) 3.58 (0.60) 3.67 (0.09)
Note. ***p < .001
M.-N. Tsai et al.

10
various learning activities.
The present study aimed at civics education courses and has implemented the teaching experiment in a brainstorming flipped
classroom approach in a course of 6 weeks; however, could this pattern be reproduced in other subjects or extend to a whole semester?
Further studies are still needed. Could this pattern be reproduced cross-culturally and be equally effective? It also needs more research.
Therefore, the further research should investigate the long-term effect of the flipped classroom in other subjects and collect self-
learning profiles for students, to discuss the relationship among students learning behaviors, the flipped classroom, and learning
performance.
Author Contributions
YF and HC designed and conducted the research. MN, YF, and YL analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript under the su
pervision of HC. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be
construed as a potential conflict of interest.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Meng-Ning Tsai: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing -
original draft, Writing - review & editing, Project administration. Yu-Fan Liao: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation,
Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Yu-Lin Chang: Conceptualization,
Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Supervision. Hsueh-Chih Chen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation,
Resources, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the “Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences” and “Chinese Language and Technology
Center” of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the
Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan and the MOST AI Biomedical Research Center at
National Cheng Kung University.
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