Designing Learning Environments to Foster Affective Learning: Comparison of Classroom to Blended Learning

Abstract

Affective learning is a key dimension of health professional education and involves teaching topics such as empathy or grief that impact student attitudes and beliefs to prepare the m to be novice practitioners. The move in higher education toward online and blended learning (a mix of online and traditional, classroom-based learning) disrupts traditional approaches to teaching professional affect, which is heavily reliant on instructor modeling. This paper documents insight into the redesign process of a course, Professional Identity: Behaviors and Attitudes, from a traditional to a blended learning format, with a focus on affective learning. This study employed a survey approach to compare classroom and online student perceptions of learning across the seven affective topics of the course. The study also examined the contribution of various technology-enhanced learning activities to the students' perceptions of learning. Twenty-five classroom students and 64 blended learning students indicated that while both formats increased students’ perceived understanding of topics related to affective learning, the blended learning group perceived a si gnificantly greater understanding in four affective topic areas. Furthermore, blended learning students cited reading, online discussions, and unstructured out-of-classroom discussions as contributing to their learning significantly more than the classroom group.