Effectiveness of blended teaching in preservice teacher education: A meta-analysis

Abstract

Blended teaching (BT) has the potential to prepare preservice teachers with lifelong learning capabilities that are essential for the constantly changing teaching profession. However, little is known about its effectiveness in this field. This review evaluated the effectiveness of BT in preservice teacher education, compared to conventional teaching approaches. A total of 15 experimental studies were included in the meta-analysis. Standardized differences in mean were chosen to compute the pooled effect size at 95% confidence interval (CI). The results demonstrate that BT outperformed the conventional teaching approaches in influencing preservice teachers’ academic performance (d = 0.922 (95% CI [0.403, 1.436], p < 0.001)), anxiety (d = −0.27 (95% CI [−0.537, −0.003], p = 0.048)), attitude (d = 1.302 (95% CI [0.008, 2.595], p = 0.049)), and self-efficacy for teaching (d = 0.54 (95% CI [0.203, 0.877], p = 0.002)). Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.