Blended Course Research Articles

Learning How to Teach Languages Online: Voices from the Field

At this moment, fully online language courses are being taught all around the globe. In addition, blended courses offer an integration of online and live instructional experiences. This study examines who is instructing online language courses and what they point to as additive and advantageous to their online language teaching development. We set out to survey higher education faculty as to how they developed their knowledge and practices. Through an online survey and follow-up synchronous interviews, we asked practicing online language educators about the sources of their expertise. The resulting dataset has much to inform professional development and instructional support generally, as well as broader research and educator communities regarding the ongoing, open-ended, peer-supported, and social nature of this kind of educator learning. As more language educators move their instruction online, the question of how to maximize the pedagogical potential of the new medium can best be addressed by those who have successfully made and embraced this move.

Can learning presence be the fourth community of inquiry presence? Examining the extended community of inquiry framework in blended learning using confirmatory factor analysis

Researchers continue to extend the community of inquiry (COI) framework, highlighting its utility in online and blended learning environments for providing a successful learning experience. Recent studies have added the learning presence dimension to the classic COI framework which contains teaching, social, and cognitive presences, to represent online students’ traits of self-regulation. However, there is a need to examine whether this additional presence structurally represents relationships with other COI presences. Attempting to fill this gap, this study examines the statistical structure of the extended COI framework (integrating the classic COI presences with the additional learning presence) as well as the structural path between the four presences, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Data were collected from 205 undergraduate students who were enrolled in blended courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study findings revealed that learning presence has strong correlations with the classic COI counterparts, especially cognitive presence. Furthermore, learning presence has significant positive relationships with cognitive presence and social presence. Overall, the validity and reliability of the extended COI framework (which integrates the classic COI presences with the additional learning presence) had been proven in this study. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive framework of the extended COI framework, proving their multi-dimensionality and inter-relationality.

Implementation of Electrical Engineering Laboratory Course for Diploma Studies in Electrical Engineering during COVID-19 Pandemic Phase

The rapid spread of a new coronavirus (COVID-19) has interrupted lectures and classes worldwide (COVID-19). Many academic institutions are moving toward online or blended course delivery, including laboratory course. This paper presents Electrical Engineering Laboratory course implementation during the COVID-19, highlighting the applied methodology and student’s practical skill performance. The Electrical Engineering Laboratory course for Part 3 students of two diploma studies at Universiti Teknologi MARA (Pasir Gudang Campus) was implemented using an extended methodology. The methodology includes analysing the structure of Electrical Engineering Laboratory Course, selecting a relevant teaching method and delivering for each experiment, and using OBE-ANAS to measure the Course Outcome (CO) and Programme Outcome (PO). In the CO-PO analysis, a few important elements of Electrical Engineering Laboratory course are measured, but the most important element, which indicates practical skills in using modern engineering tools, has moderately surpassed the performance level set for this particular CO-PO Mapping despite the blended mode of delivery. It is may be due to the wise selection of experiment delivery mechanism. However, future study may compare the complete face-to-face delivery of the electrical engineering laboratory course with blended mode delivery to examine the effect of delivery mode on the laboratory course’s execution.

Exploring Nursing Undergraduates' Experiences with a Redesigned Blended Learning Course: A Descriptive Qualitative Study.

To explore the experience of nursing undergraduates with a blended course, that was redesigned using the Community of Inquiry framework. The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nursing Course was redesigned using blended learning pedagogy, which starts from the creation of teaching presence, plays the intermediary role of social presence and aims at realizing cognitive presence. After the course completion, we conducted a qualitative descriptive study and collected data using focus group interviews and field notes. The findings comprised three main themes including role promotion, passive and selective learning and recommendations. Teachers and peers reportedly played the supervisors, facilitators and coordinators in learning promotion. Some students experienced difficulties in adapting to the blended learning environment due to passive learning habits, character flaws and academic pressure. However, a majority of them supported the application of the model.

The relations between Czech undergraduates' motivation and emotion in self-regulated learning, learning engagement, and academic success in blended course designs: Consistency between theory-driven and data-driven approaches.

Combining theory-driven and data-driven approaches, this study used both self-reported and observational measures to examine: (1) the joint contributions of students' self-reported undergraduates' motivation and emotion in their self-regulated learning, their observed online learning interactions, and their academic success in blended course designs; and (2) the extent to which the self-reported and observational measures were consistent with each other. The participants in the study were 54 social sciences undergraduates in the Czech Republic. The participants' self-reported self-efficacy, intrinsic goals, and anxiety were assessed using a Czech version of three scales from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. Their online engagement was represented by students' observed frequency of interactions with the six online learning activities recorded in the learning management system. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that the self-reported and observational measures together could explain 71% of variance in academic success, significantly improving explanatory power over using self-reported measures alone. Departing from the theory-driven approach, students were clustered as better and poorer self-regulated learners by their self-reports, and one-way ANOVAs showed that better self-regulated learners had significantly more frequent online interactions with four out of six online learning activities and better final exam results. Departing from the data-driven approach, students were clustered as higher and lower online-engaged learners by the observed frequency of their interaction with online learning activities. One-way ANOVAs showed that higher online-engaged learners also reported having higher self-efficacy and lower anxiety. Furthermore, the strong association between the students' profiles in both self-reported measures and observational measures in cross-tabulation analyses showed that the majority of better self-regulated learners by self-reporting also had higher online engagement by observation, whereas the majority of poorer self-regulated learners by self-reporting were lower online-engaged learners, demonstrating consistency between theory-driven and data-driven approaches.

Blended Learning: A Need for Change in Education System

Immediate access to people and knowledge through technology is increasing, and this is often transforming our everyday lives. Using connected mobile tools like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, we purposefully “blend” physical and online activities to make optimal experiences. This is often what blended education is all about: situating learning experiences online or onsite based on the relative strengths and weaknesses of each mode. Research suggests that blended courses can have a positive impact on efficiency, convenience, and learning outcomes. By moving more of the training to online environments, blended courses add flexibility to participants’ schedules, provide learning benefit through automated and asynchronous online tools, and may tap into the modern, social Web to assist learners venture beyond the traditional confines of the classroom. To consistently achieve such benefits, teachers have to go beyond a simple “digital facelift.” Instead, teachers should aim to make transformative blends through an intentional course redesign process.

Internationalisation of Teaching and Learning through Blended Mobility: Potentials of Joint International Blended Courses and Challenges in Their Implementation

Blended Mobility formats such as joint international blended courses have the potential to enable more students at universities and other HEIs to gain international experiences in the course of their studies. They enhance transnational cooperation in the European Higher Education Area by building bridges at the crossroads of education, research, innovation, serving society and economy. In this article, the authors reflect on their experiences in the conception, planning, organisation and implementation of a joint international blended course between Freie Universität Berlin and Universidad Complutense de Madrid in the field of sustainable development in the summer semester of 2022. The course was offered within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA3 project “Online Pedagogical Resources for European Universities” (OpenU project).

Impact of role assignment and group size on asynchronous online discussion: An experimental study

Role assignment and group size are important design considerations for conducting effective asynchronous online discussion (AOD). While these two design considerations have been investigated separately in literature, few studies have examined their combined effects in AOD. To address this research gap, this study conducted a two-level factorial experiment to determine the main effect and interaction of role assignment and group size on AOD participation, learning experience, and learning achievement. A total of 112 participants from an undergraduate blended course were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions: role-based small-group (n = 27), role-based medium-group (n = 30), role-free small-group (n = 27), and role-free medium-group (n = 28). The ANOVA results showed that the simple role structure of initiator, supporter, and arguer increased the overall participation and peer interaction in AOD, while the group size of three members led to slightly better learning achievement. No significant interaction effects or role-specific effects were identified, indicating that students can benefit from role-based AOD regardless of group size and role script. The study results can inform the design and implementation of effective AOD.

Patterns of students' collaborations by variations in their learning orientations in blended course designs: How is it associated with academic achievement?

AbstractBackgroundWhile a number of learner factors have been identified to impact students' collaborative learning, there has been little systematic research into how patterns of students' collaborative learning may differ by their learning orientations.ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate: (1) variations in students' learning orientations by their conceptions, approaches, and perceptions; (2) the patterns of students' collaborations by variations in their learning orientations and (3) the contribution of patterns of collaborations to academic achievement.MethodsA cohort of 174 Chinese undergraduates in a blended engineering course were surveyed for their conceptions of learning, approaches to learning and to using online learning technologies, and perceptions of e‐learning, to identify variations in their learning orientations. Students' collaborations and mode of collaborations were collected through an open‐ended social network analysis (SNA) questionnaire.Results and ConclusionsA hierarchical cluster analysis identified an ‘understanding’ and ‘reproducing’ learning orientations. Based on students' learning orientations and their choices to collaborate, students were categorized into three mutually exclusive collaborative group, namely Understanding Collaborative group, Reproducing Collaborative group and Mixed Collaborative group. SNA centrality measures demonstrated that students in the Understanding Collaborative group had more collaborations and stayed in a better position in terms of capacity to gather information. Both students' approaches to learning and students' average collaborations significantly contributed to their academic achievement, explaining 3% and 4% of variance in their academic achievement respectively. The results suggest that fostering a desirable learning orientation may help improve students' collaborative learning.

A Problem-Centered Approach to Designing Blended Courses: Unifying Online and Face-to-Face Modalities

After experimenting with emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 schools have retained select online instruction by incorporating blended teaching models. In response, teacher education must respond in innovative ways to prepare future educators with blended teaching competencies. This article presents a problem-centered model for designing flipped courses and discusses how this can demonstrate blended teaching practices that pre-service teachers can observe and experience. Applying a descriptive phenomenological research design, the author iteratively prompted 12 pre-service teachers to reflect on their experiences in a flipped, technology integration course, designed according to this problem-centered model. The results indicate that pre-service teachers experienced the online space as a place to experiment with novel technologies; the in-person class as time for practicing challenging skills and reflecting on future possibilities; and the problem-centered nature of the course as a unifying element and scaffold for their learning.

Paradigm shift in medical education due to the COVID-19 pandemic: guidelines for developing a blended learning curriculum in medical education.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has transformed the world's economy, health and education in a blink of an eye. Almost 1 billion learners have been affected across the globe. This has resulted in a paradigm shift to blended learning. Therefore, it was felt necessary to provide practical guidelines for the development of blended curriculum in medical education. It would help to overcome the challenges faced due to unprecedented transformation of medical education on account of pandemic. Methods: Guidelines based on personal experience of the authors and literature search were developed using the complex adapted blended learning system (CALBS) framework. Seven experts developed these guidelines using the nominal group technique. The consent form and literature for CABLS framework was shared with experts. The experts developed the guidelines independently during phase one of the technique. After a given time, phase 2 started with moderator mediated discussion about the individual guidelines developed by the experts. After discussion and mutual consensus four types of guideline ideas were developed. During the third phase the experts ranked the guideline ideas on a scale of 1 to 5. The guideline idea that ranked highest was selected as a final guideline for developing a blended learning curriculum. Results: The group consensus resulted in developing seven guidelines for a blended course or curriculum in medical education. These guidelines are based on a conceptual framework supplemented by expert's own personal experience and current evidence from literature. Conclusions: These guidelines would provide a comprehensive and systematic approach to develop a blended learning curriculum in medical education.

Changes in university students' behavioral intention to learn online throughout the COVID-19: Insights for online teaching in the post-pandemic era.

Many researchers investigated university students’ behavioural intention to undertake online courses during COVID. However, few examined how students’ intention might change throughout COVID by incorporating their learning capability and approaches. The universities in China went through a process from lockdown in February to reopening in September 2020. It provided a unique context for university students in China to experience emergent online learning for approximately six months before returning to normal face-to-face or blended learning on campus. The researchers conducted a questionnaire survey among 193 Chinese university students to investigate the changes in their behavioral intention to learn online throughout COVID. Additionally, the researchers explored the relationships between the participants’ behavioral intention and the factors of learning capability in general, application of specific online learning strategies, online course engagement levels, and academic performance. It was found that the participants’ intention to study online significantly increased during COVID and then slightly decreased after the university reopened. The participants’ intention of online learning after COVID was predicted by their prior intention, learning capability, application of online learning strategies, and online course engagement. The participants’ perceptions about online learning revealed that, when choosing future course delivery modes, they would a) reflect on their own disposition, capability, and needs, b) compare different learning modes, and c) examine course quality and teachers’ competency. The participants also shared advice regarding their expectation of future online courses which may help shape university educators’ pedagogical practices and provide insights for university online and blended course delivery from learners’ perspectives.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10639-022-11320-0.

Teaching Social Marketing Using E-Service Learning Amidst Health and Humanitarian Crises: A Case Study from Lebanon.

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of an e-service learning course, “Social Marketing for Health Promotion”, offered to full-time and part-time students enrolled in the Master of Public Health at our institution. In a quasi-experimental trial, we introduced e-service learning in 2018, comparing a traditional face-to-face section to a blended course (33% online). Based on the positive feedback received, we progressively increased the online component in the following academic years, reaching 100% online in Fall 2020. We compared the quantitative and qualitative indicators evaluating three e-service learning-course iterations with a face-to-face control. The impact indicators included participation and engagement in the course, the attainment of the learning outcomes, satisfaction with the course, instructors and mode of delivery, and the impact of the experience beyond the classroom. Over the years, we trained 73 students whose engagement with the course remained relatively stable. The attainment of the learning outcomes and general course satisfaction steadily increased over time, demonstrating a positive impact on student learning. Qualitative data illustrate the importance of instructors in setting expectations and guiding students and community partners through a remote-learning process.

How to Decide the Proportion of Online to Face-to-Face Components of a Blended Course? A Delphi Study

Deciding the proportion of online to face-to-face components of a blended learning course is a complex problem that entails many decisions. These decisions are affected by different criteria related to the nature of the course, the educational institution, the teacher, and the students. The impact of these influential criteria on the design process is not always obvious. The aim of this study is to assist academics to design successful blended courses by investigating the impact of criteria that need consideration when deciding the proportion of online components of a blended course. A modified Delphi survey was used in this study. Eighteen experts with experience in instructional design and online teaching participated in the study. Findings indicate that technological aspects, that is, Availability of technology and Students’ access to technology, have a strong negative impact on the proportion of online to face-to-face components. On the other hand, students’ flexibility and convenience as well as the availability of a high level of institutional support should motivate academics to incorporate a high proportion of online components in their courses. The results also indicate that blended learning courses should have medium to high proportions of online components.

Students’ perceptions of an extensive blended learning implementation: the effects of instructional design and interaction

ABSTRACT In Blended Learning, students receive a combination of traditional face to face instruction in class and are also required to complete activities outside of the classroom. BL increases opportunities for faculty members to design more effective teaching and learning environments. In order to do so, Instructional Design might be used to support blended courses planning and management. This study has investigated the simultaneous implementation of 38 blended courses in a private Brazilian university, which involved more than 11,000 students and 250 teachers. The general objective of this study was to assess whether instructional design and course management practices as well as interaction affect students’ instruction. Through the use of Structural Equation Modeling, this study found out that instructional design positively influences instruction, especially when mediated by interaction. This study did not find a significant effect of course management over instruction. This study presents some implications to instructional designers and teachers of blended courses.

Exploring Nursing Students’ Perceptions of Educational Experience and Satisfaction in a Blended Learning Course


 
 
 This survey study aims to investigate nursing students’ perceptions of educational experience and satisfaction in a blended course. The modified Community of Inquiry (CoI) and satisfaction questionnaires consist of 5-point Likert scale items, were administered to 224 nursing students. Nursing students were found to have good educational experience (social, cognitive and teaching presences) and satisfaction in this blended course.
 
 

A Course Level Analysis of Academic Performance on Adult Learners


 
 
 Thanks, in part, to the rapid development and widespread adoption of the Internet and other online technologies, academic institutions are increasingly using analytics to enhance learning and teaching. Through the use of data mining techniques, this study examines some of the determinants at a course level that affect the academic performance of adult learners (which we will refer to as students in this paper) in the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS). Formerly known as SIM University, SUSS is an institution that caters mainly to the learning needs of working adults although it offers a number of full-time undergraduate degree programmes to fresh school leavers. The data analysis found that students taking introductory blended courses performed better than those who took face-to-face courses of the same level. Furthermore, students of similar age taking level-2 courses outperformed students taking similar courses where the age difference was more significant. The findings indicate that no single optimal course design will lead to improved academic performance across all courses. Instead, educators should be ready to consider the nature, level, discipline and coursework component of each course to cater to the various students’ needs.
 
 

Switching Learning Methods during the Pandemic: A Quasi-Experimental Study on a Master Course

The COVID-19 pandemic marked an important breakthrough in human progress: from working habits to social life, the world population’s behaviours changed according to the new lifestyle requirements. In this changing environment, university courses and learning methods evolved along with other “remote” working activities. For this quasi-experimental study, we discuss the effectiveness of the changes made by the LUMSA University in Rome, comparing two different groups of students who attended a master’s course with blended and fully remote methodologies. Here, we focused our attention on the paradigm shift, comparing the data gathered during the blended course in the 2019/2020 academic year with data gathered during the same course, but conducted fully online, in the academic year 2020/2021. Considering the sample size and type, the group comparison was made using a non-parametric test (U-test). The statistical analysis results suggest that there was no substantial difference between the students’ performance, confirming that the course changes made to adapt to the pandemic situation were successful and that learning effectiveness was preserved.

Implementing Blended Learning in Bangladeshi Universities: Challenges and Opportunities from Student Perspectives

Blended education has been used worldwide for the last two decades as an alternative to full online education but not in Bangladesh. There was never any significant attempt to investigate people’s perception or experience of blended learning in Bangladesh. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the people’s experiences with this new method, a three-month-long blended course in English Writing Skill was offered at a private university in Bangladesh, where eighteen students registered for the course. After completing the course, an open-ended interview protocol was used to collect primary data from 11 students. This qualitative research is based on an interview with 11 samples and other comments posted on Google classroom and Facebook. The interview contained 8 open-ended questions to elicit their experiences with the blended learning method, a new method for them on the one hand, and both face-to-face and online education. We also investigated the 4 essay scores of these 11 respondents to check whether their performance improved due to peer and teacher feedback on those essays in the blog created and used for posting student essays. The majority of respondents have a highly positive opinion about the blended method for its positive impacts such as peer interaction and peer support, teacher feedback, as is evident from their improved scores in the successive essays, and other advantages such as learning varieties, flexibility and self-paced learning and quality of education. However, they mention a number of challenges in its implementation. It seems that blended courses will effectively reduce session backlog and cost of higher education, increase student-student and student-teacher interaction and ensure flexibility and quality of higher education in comparison with face-to-face and online education. This study is important for Bangladeshi higher education institutions because it is expected to enlighten policymakers about the importance of blended education.

Student Readiness and Perception of Tablet Learning in Higher Education in the Pacific- A Case Study of Fiji and Tuvalu

Significant growth and successful integration of mobile devices to the education landscape have garnered the introduction of mobile learning (mLearning) as a new technology-enabled educational tool. Mobile learning has become a new higher educational paradigm which makes learning more flexible and accessible. However, student readiness and their perceptions about educational use of tablet devices are still a concern particularly in the developing countries like the Pacific island countries (PICs). This article investigates these two important attributes of tablet devices in a first year blended course from a higher education institute in the Pacific with a sample of 43 students. The results revealed that the participants perceived that tablet devices were effective and innovative learning tools. The participants supported the idea of using tablet devices and were ready to incorporate them for learning provided there was training in place. This article finally outlines recommendations for the education sectors in the Pacific.