Abstract
The significance of scaffolding in education has received considerable attention. Many studies have examined the effects of scaffolding with diverse groups of participants, purposes, learning outcomes, and learning environments. The purpose of this research was to conduct a meta-analysis of the effects of scaffolding on learning outcomes in an online learning environment in higher education. This meta-analysis included studies with 64 effect sizes from 18 journal articles published in English, in eight countries, from 2010 to 2019. The meta-analysis revealed that scaffolding in an online learning environment has a large and statistically significant effect on learning outcomes. The meta-cognitive domain yielded a larger effect size than did the affective and cognitive domains. In terms of types of scaffolding activities, meta-cognitive scaffolding outnumbered other types of scaffolding. Computers as a scaffolding source in an online learning environment were also more prevalent than were human instructors. In addition, scholars in the United States have produced a large portion of the scaffolding research. Finally, the academic area of language and literature has adopted scaffolding most widely. Given that effective scaffolding can improve the quality of learning in an online environment, the current research is expected to contribute to online learning outcomes and learning experiences.
Highlights
Online learning has become prevalent in higher education with increasing numbers of students taking online courses (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018)
Despite the rapid growth of online learning, approximately 23% of students were concerned about the “quality of instruction and academic support” for online courses in higher education (BestColleges, 2019, p. 9)
The heterogeneity test results (Q = 699.991, I2 = 91.0%, p < .001) showed a considerable difference between effect size estimates in the meta-analysis, which validated our decision to use the random-effects model (Borenstein et al, 2009; Higgins & Green, 2008) in which I2 index below 25% is small, 50% is moderate, and beyond 75% is a large amount of heterogeneity
Summary
Online learning has become prevalent in higher education with increasing numbers of students taking online courses (Seaman, Allen, & Seaman, 2018). Despite the rapid growth of online learning, approximately 23% of students were concerned about the “quality of instruction and academic support” for online courses in higher education At first, when a learner starts pedalling, an assistant needs to hold onto the bike seat firmly because the child may lose control. While the learner is learning how to balance on the bike, the assistant needs to alternate between holding on to and releasing the bike seat as learning progresses. Once the learner has a sense of balance, the assistant should let go of the bike, a step known as fading. This process is similar to teaching using small steps, called scaffolding
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