Abstract
This study examines through action research whether blended instruction in an upper-level philosophy course in introductory symbolic logic can help undergraduate philosophy students to achieve better learning outcomes than undergraduate philosophy students in a traditional, face-to-face version of the same course. The authors conclude that the change from traditional instruction to blended instruction did have a positive and significant effect on student learning as measured in course grades and student assessment scores for one course learning objective, as well as a positive but non-significant effect on student assessment scores for two additional course learning objectives.
Highlights
The widespread implementation of online learning management systems during the past twenty-five years has made possible modes of instruction that had not previously been available in higher education
The authors conclude that the change from traditional instruction to blended instruction of an introductory symbolic logic course for philosophy majors did have a positive and significant effect on student learning as measured in course grades and student assessment scores for one learning objective, as well as a positive but non-significant effect on student assessment scores for two additional learning objectives
The authors caution against assuming that instructors of courses that differ in significant, relevant ways from an upperlevel introductory course in symbolic logic aimed primarily at philosophy majors and typically enrolling 10 to 25 undergraduate students will obtain similar results from changing from traditional instruction to blended instruction in their courses
Summary
The widespread implementation of online learning management systems during the past twenty-five years has made possible modes of instruction that had not previously been available in higher education. In addition to traditional face-to-face instruction, instructors can deliver courses purely online, without ever meeting their students face-to-face in a physical classroom. The present study examines whether transforming blended instruction in an upper-level philosophy course in introductory symbolic logic can help undergraduate philosophy students to achieve better learning outcomes than undergraduate philosophy students in a traditional, face-to-face version of the same course. Face-to-face sections of the course frequently raised the concern that they needed to spend more time in class on face-to-face problemsolving activities. Face-to-face class meetings were divided between face-to-face lectures about the course material and face-to-face problem-solving activities focused on exercises selected by the instructor. The instructor’s motivation for moving from traditional delivery to blended delivery of the course was to see whether course-level, transformational blended instruction would promote student learning as reflected in student grades and student performance on the 4 course learning objectives
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