Investigating the Impact of Different Teaching Methods in College Chinese Courses on Cognitive Understanding and Brain Activation Patterns Using Portable fNIRS.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate how different instructional methods in college Chinese language education-traditional lecture (TL), group discussion (GD), and flipped classroom (FC)-affect students' cognitive comprehension and prefrontal cortical activation. A key focus was to demonstrate the feasibility and value of using portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) sensors to capture real-time brain activity in ecologically valid classroom settings. METHODS: A total of 30 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of three instructional conditions. Participants completed comprehension assessments, a semantic conflict task, and NASA-TLX workload ratings. Simultaneously, a wearable fNIRS sensor system was used to monitor hemodynamic responses (ΔHbO) and functional connectivity in prefrontal cortical areas, enabling noninvasive neural measurements during naturalistic learning. RESULTS: The FC condition showed significantly higher total comprehension scores compared to the GD (p = 0.002) and TL conditions (p < 0.001), with the greatest advantage observed in higher-order semantic processing (p < 0.001). The GD condition outperformed others in resolving semantic conflict, showing the lowest interference cost and highest accuracy in the modern-meaning interference cost. The FC condition reported the lowest overall cognitive workload (56.7 ± 6.2), significantly lower than GD and TL (p < 0.001). fNIRS sensor data revealed the highest ΔHbO activation in the FC condition, particularly in the left DLPFC, along with stronger functional connectivity between L-DLPFC and L-VLPFC. Brain-behavior correlations showed a positive association between L-DLPFC activation and comprehension score (r = 0.51, p < 0.001), and a negative association between connectivity strength and semantic interference cost (r = -0.57, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: The integration of portable fNIRS sensors into educational research provides valuable insights into how instructional strategies modulate both cognition and brain function in real-world classroom environments. The flipped classroom method proves most effective in enhancing semantic comprehension, lowering cognitive demands, and promoting prefrontal engagement. These findings validate the application of wearable brain-sensing technologies to evaluate and optimize pedagogical practices in higher education.