Structural relationships among self-regulation, transactional distance, and learning engagement in a large university class using flipped learning

Abstract

Flipped learning has received growing attention as an important instructional approach leading to students' learning performance and higher order thinking abilities. This study applied flipped learning to a large university class to improve its major weakness, students' low engagement, and investigated the effects of self-regulation and transactional distance on learning engagement. The participants of this study were 390 undergraduate students who were enrolled in a general education course Philosophy of Consideration at a large university in South Korea. Analyses of an online survey completed in the Fall semester of 2018 indicate that self-regulation affected learning engagement and transactional interaction. Transactional interaction also affected learning engagement. In addition, transactional distance was found to mediate the relationship between self-regulation and learning engagement. That is, self-regulation affected learning engagement both directly and indirectly. However, students' past flipped learning experience did not moderate the relationships among self-regulation, transactional interaction, and learning engagement. The research findings of this study confirmed the importance of self-regulation and transactional distance for improving learning engagement in a large university class. Finally, this study directly addresses prevailing concerns about how to effectively teach a large university class.