Moving toward heutagogical learning: Illuminating undergraduate nursing students' experiences in a flipped classroom.

BACKGROUND: Nurse educators rely on the tenets of educational theory and evidence-based education to promote the most effective curriculum and facilitate the best outcomes. The flipped classroom model, in which students assume personal responsibility for knowledge acquisition in a highly engaging and interactive environment, supports self-directed learning and the unique needs of clinical education.

OBJECTIVE: To understand how students perceived their experiences in the flipped classroom and how students' learning dispositions were affected by the flipped classroom experience.

DESIGN: A phenomenological approach was used to gain deeper understanding about students' perspectives, perceptions and subjective experiences of the flipped classroom model. The focus of the study was on characteristics of student learning.

PARTICIPANTS: Fourteen Bachelors of Science of Nursing (BSN) students at a regional university in the southeastern United States.

METHODS: Using data transcribed from face-to-face, semi-structured interviews, experiential themes were extracted from the qualitative data (student-reported experiences, attributes, thoughts, values, and beliefs regarding teaching and learning in the context of their experience of the flipped classroom) using Graneheim's and Lundman's (2004) guidelines; and were coded and analyzed within theoretical categories based on pedagogical, andragogical or heutagogical learning dispositions.

RESULTS: Experiential themes that emerged from students' descriptions of their experiences in the flipped classroom included discernment, challenge, relevance, responsibility, and expertise.

CONCLUSIONS: The flipped classroom model offers promising possibilities for facilitating students' movement from learning that is characteristic of pedagogy and andragogy toward heutagogical learning.