Correlation Between Online Content Viewing and Classroom Performance

Purpose: Several physical therapy programs have applied flipped teaching methods to deliver content within the expanding physical therapy curricula.1, 2 A study at a health professions school showed at least 90% of students felt a flipped class promoted understanding and application of material.3 Additionally, graduate students enrolled in a modified flipped class scored significantly higher (P 4 The purpose of this study was to determine how consumption of flipped material correlates with class performance for year one Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students. We hypothesize that time viewing at-home lecture material will be significantly related to exam performance. Methods: Forty-four first year DPT students completed a final practical and a comprehensive written exam as part of a Therapeutic Interventions I class. Exam and overall course grades were compared to weekly viewing times provided by the Canvas Learning Management System. All participants were provided with electronic informed consent. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC). Results: Increase in weekly time viewing at-home lecture material was correlated with increase in both written and practical exam scores, r(44)=0.383, p=0.009, and r(44) =0.424, p=0.003. There was a low correlation between weekly viewing time and achievement of 90th and 20th percentile class ranks, r(44)= -0.373, p=0.011 and r(44)=0.336, p=0.02. The ROC analyses demonstrated weekly viewing time had good ability to discriminate between students who scored in 90th and 10th percentiles on the comprehensive exam (AUC=0.87; 0.80, P=0.014; 0.005) and overall class grades (AUC=0.82, P=0.007). The cutoff point showed students had to view the minimum of 30.8 minutes each week to achieve the 90th percentile, 25.5 minutes or more to earn an ‘A’, and 18.9 or fewer minutes to obtain the 10th percentile. Conclusions: Weekly viewing time is associated with student performance on exams. Time spent viewing lecture material per week predicts various levels of success or poor performance in the flipped class. This sample was limited to year 1 DPT students at UNTHSC in one course and may not be generalizable beyond these conditions.