The latest decade has been witnessing the popularity of the “flipped classroom”, which inverts the traditional pedagogic approach by turning the traditional model of information delivery upside-down (Mazur 2009: 51). In terms of the teaching and learning standpoint, the flipped classroom sheds light on the student-centered teaching rather than the teacher-centered. The flipped class uses educational technologies such as clickers to enhance peer interaction and collaboration (Fitzpatrick, 2012). It also allows teachers to alter the lecture-centered instruction by shifting from the teacher lecturing to students’ self-directed learning (Hamdan, McKnight, McKnight, and Arfstrom 2013, p. 3).
Previous studies have found that the flipped model failed to keep satisfying students, which indicated further exploration of contributing factors of satisfaction (Zhai et al., 2017). It has been reported that use of clicker system is satisfactory to learners in a variety of classes. Learners were demonstrated to be willing to adopt clicker technology as an aid to learning (McKeachie, 1990). Before class, the flipped class required students to internalize knowledge through web-based learning, which plays as a major role of the flipped learning. Learners adopt educational technologies to communicate with peers and instructors, to share opinions, discuss questions, and solve problems via online interaction. The educational technology-aided learning will therefore play an important role in determining the satisfaction of clicker-aided flipped EFL class.