A Trend Analysis of Research on the Flipped Classroom in L2 Learning before and after COVID-19

Abstract

The aim of this research is to examine the EFL flipped classroom trend before and during COVID-19 by the frequent types of research designs and topics investigated in the studies. For this purpose, a content analysis was used as the research methodology. A content analysis was implemented for each article regarding research design and subject. A total of 44 research papers from journals listed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Springer, and Scopus were analyzed. Only recent studies between 2017 and 2021 were reviewed because this study aims to analyze papers published immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. First, the results showed writing skills were investigated more than speaking and listening skills. Next, the flipped classroom positively affected EFL learners’ writing, grammar, and speaking anxiety. In addition, the most commonly used research method was the mixed method (n = 25), and the least used was the qualitative method (n = 3) during the years 2017–2021. The findings also revealed that the trend decreased from 2017 to 2018; however, it increased rapidly after 2018. This paper implicates that the recent research trend on flipped classrooms during emergency online L2 education focused on EFL writing, more research is needed to examine other language skills.

Keywords

• flipped classroom
• COVID-19
• English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL)
• language teaching