The effectiveness of the flipped learning strategy in developing the critical thinking and accounting skills of commercial technical secondary school students
Authors:   Al Balqa Applied University, Al-Rafayah Ahmed Abdullah 
Published: January 2024

Introduction. As pedagogical practices evolve, the flipped learning strategy has emerged as a significant approach, especially in technical subjects like accounting. By prioritizing student-centered activities over traditional lectures, this method has demonstrated efficacy in enhancing comprehension of complex topics. The research aimed to identify the effectiveness of the flipped learning strategy in developing the critical thinking and accounting skills of commercial technical secondary school students. Study participants and methods. The study involved (160) students in the second year of technical and commercial secondary school for Girls divided into two groups, one of which represents the experimental group (80) students, and the other representing the control group (80) students. To achieve the goal of the research, the researcher prepared a list of accounting skills and a list of critical thinking skills in financial accounting. The researcher utilised SPSS for data analysis, calculating means and standard deviations and conducting the "T" test and the Eta square equation to test the research hypotheses and evaluate the effectiveness of the flipped learning technique on students' accounting knowledge and analytical prowess. The results. The study looked at how well the flipped learning method helped students in their second year of commercial high school with their accounting and critical thinking. The average score for the experimental group of 80 students on the financial accounting performance attitudes test was 72.38, with a standard deviation of 3.513. In contrast, the standard deviation was 7.507 points for the comparison group of 40 students. Assuming a significance threshold of 0.05, the estimated t-value for this difference was 25.601, and an Eta square value (2) of 0.89 showed a large effect size with a D value of 5.69. The average score for the experimental group was 61.18 (SD = 2.969) on the test of critical thinking skills, while the average score for the control group was 33.23 (SD = 3.490). A t-value of 38.581 indicates statistical significance at the 0.05 level for this difference. D = 8.72, which is quite high, and 2 = 0.95, which is consistent with the flipped learning technique having some effect on this test. In addition, there was a significant positive relationship between accounting competence and critical thinking abilities among the experimental group students, as shown by a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.928 between scores on the performance attitudes test in financial accounting and the critical thinking skills test. Conclusions. The research showed that second-year students in commercial technical high schools benefited greatly from the flipped learning technique in terms of improved accounting and critical thinking abilities. Compared to their counterparts in the traditional learning environment, students who were exposed to the flipped learning approach had considerably greater accounting proficiency and critical thinking scores. Students in the control group did not show the same strong positive link between accounting knowledge and critical thinking skills. Based on these results, further study might focus on refining the flipped learning model, examining its viability in other technically-oriented fields, and investigating its potential for use in a wider range of educational settings.