Facilitating EFL students' class engagement, motivation, self-efficacy, and achievements: adopting differentiated instruction in self-regulated flipped learning

The crucial role that student-related factors play in the effect of flipped learning has been emphasized, and self-regulated mechanisms have been integrated into flipped classrooms to promote students' learning; however, self-regulatory skills are of no use if learners cannot be stimulated to utilize them. In this study, a differentiated self-regulated flipped learning approach (namely DSR-FL), which integrated differentiated instruction and self-regulation into a flipped classroom, was designed to support EFL students' learning. Furthermore, a three-group experiment was conducted to evaluate the influence of the three different flipped learning models, namely the DSR-FL approach, the SR-FL (incorporating self-regulation into flipped learning) approach, and the C-FL (conventional flipped learning) approach. The results indicated that both the DSR-FL and SR-FL approaches were capable of promoting students' class engagement, motivation, and perceptions of self-efficacy, in comparison with the C-FL approach; furthermore, the students who learned with the DSR-FL approach outperformed those who learned with the C-FL approach in terms of improving their learning achievements. This could be a valuable reference for teachers to promote EFL students' learning.