Blended learning environments and learning outcomes: The mediating role of flow experience

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of blended learning environments (BLEs) across disciplines, the extant research provides inconsistent results on their performance effects. While many studies find positive effects of BLEs on learning outcomes, others either find no significant performance differences between BLEs and traditional lectures or reveal that learners prefer face-to-face encounters. These contradictory findings suggest that differences in the effects of BLEs and other instruction formats on learning outcomes might be more nuanced than conceptualized in prior research. Specifically, research in the fields of management education and educational psychology indicates that these inconsistent findings might be addressed by carefully analyzing specific design characteristics of BLEs and by considering indirect effects of psychological characteristics. Thus, we introduce flow theory, which describes a learner's complete immersion in an activity, and we propose that experiencing flow mediates the positive effects of flexibility and interaction—two central characteristics of BLEs—on learning outcomes. The results of a quasi-experiment with 115 graduate-level management students support our hypotheses. We contribute to blended learning research by looking beyond the direct effects of instruction formats on learning outcomes and by investigating the mechanisms as well as the boundary conditions behind active knowledge construction in BLEs from a constructivist perspective. Our results suggest that instructors should ensure that they promote both flexibility and interaction in BLEs, and they should account for learners' cognitive characteristics.