Step Turn
In a C 172, I cannot suggest that retracting the flaps on final is immanently life threatening, but it's an unnecessary and bad habit, which will have to be unlearned in "bigger" flying environments - so why start?
Maybe for this reason that I posted earlier in the thread.
I wonder if the OP or anyone else has considered that maybe this pilot was just practising a glide approach after simulating an engine failure downwind, that would make the above procedure a perfectly normal technique to obtain the correct touchdown point on your runway, or an off airport landing in a field
I have always been an advocate of, if you change something and it does not work out or something fails then change back to the original setting.