Thesis:

The effect of flipped classroom on academic retention and critical thinking development in medical students

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of flipped classroom on academic retention and critical thinking among medical students at Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences. This study is applied in terms of purpose and quasi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group in terms of method. The statistical population included all medical students at this university in the second semester of the academic year 1403-1404, of which 40 people were selected by simple random sampling method based on the student name table and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (20 people) and control (20 people). The data collection tool included the academic retention questionnaire and the critical thinking questionnaire. The experimental group received training in 8 training sessions with the flipped classroom approach, while the control group received training with the traditional method (lecture). The data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate analysis of covariance in SPSS version 28. The results showed that the flipped classroom has a positive and significant effect on both dependent variables; So that for academic retention, the statistic F = 40.951, p < 0.001, ?² = 0.672 and for critical thinking, the statistic F = 21.526, p < 0.001, ?² = 0.518 were obtained. These effect sizes indicate a high impact of the intervention, especially in strengthening academic retention. Based on the findings, the use of the flipped classroom approach can be used as an effective educational strategy to promote academic retention and develop critical thinking skills in medical students. Finally, practical and research suggestions for using this method in other educational areas are presented.

Keywords: Flipped classroom