Technology is influencing education, providing new delivery and assessment models. A combination between online and traditional course, the hybrid (blended) course, may present a solution with many benefits as it provides a gradual transition towards technology enabled education. This research work provides a set of definitions for several course delivery approaches, and evaluates five years of data from a course that has been converted from traditional face-to-face delivery, to hybrid delivery. The collected experimental data proves that the revised course, in the hybrid delivery mode, is at least as good, if not better, than it previously was and it provides some benefits in terms of student retention.
The abundance of computing power and the widespread availability of the Internet had a tremendous impact on society for the past decades. Education as a fundamental branch of social activity has been rapidly reshaping itself adapting to the informational era. The online teaching technology, like any novel approach, presents both advantages and disadvantages, appropriate use and misuse. This article presents the recent evolution of teaching styles vis-a-vis technology focusing on defining and assessing hybrid delivery methods. The research builds on previous work [1], adds additional related work studies, as well as an additional year of experimental data and discussions.
Studies in the United States (i.e., The Gartner Group Research Institute) anticipated that the world’s e-Learning sales would grow 14.5% annually from 2006 to 2011 [2]. Over a similar timescale, government policies in the United Kingdom also indicated that the effective use of technologyassisted student-focused learning is essential for the future of higher education [3][4][5][6]. In a review of higher education and the future role of the university, Ernst & Young [7] have suggested that “… campuses will remain, but digital technologies will transform the way education is delivered and accessed, and the way ‘value’ is created by higher education providers, public and private alike.”
Large scale as well as smarter use of technology in teaching is widely seen as a promising way of controlling costs [8]. When compared to other service industries, higher education stands out as being particularly affected by what has been described as the “cost disease” [9]. Universities have large costs for infrastructure and labor, with reliance on expensive face-to-face provision. The urgent need to boost university productivity has been noted by many [10][11][12]. Moreover, cost reductions are demanded by students (as they want to spend less time and lower the costs of traveling to the main campus) and improved time flexibility, specifically for full-time or part-time working students.
Face-to-face lectures are accepted as being a very inexpensive way of presenting new ideas and concepts to students. Additionally, lecturing has been described as an ineffective tool for promoting theoretical understanding [13], as it rarely stimulates student thinking beyond the short-term memory [14] [15]. The passive role assumed by students in lectures is too focused on the subject being delivered, rather than the learners and their individual needs [16]. But, teaching the same content can be made more interesting, and students can become active, independent learners, if different delivery methods (including multimedia) are used [17].
Implemented proficiently, the online and the hybrid (blended) provision has the capacity to lower costs and at least sustain, if not boost student outcomes [18][19][20]. Hybrid/blended learning can ease some of the economic strain on students, as it reduces commuting expenses and allows for a flexible timetable that may better accommodate the students’ personal circumstances [21]. Cost simulations, although speculative, have indicated that adopting hybrid models of instruction in large introductory courses has the potential to reduce costs quite substantially [8].
This article presents in Section II a set of definitions for the terms in common use in educational delivery, and provides clarifications on the use and meaning of these terms. The choice for hybrid/blended learning is described in Section III, followed by the “Fundamentals of the Internet and the World Wide Web” (CSCI 1150) course description in Section IV. The methodology for data collection is detailed in Section V, with Section VI exploring the evaluation of said data in terms of student outcomes and attrition rates. The relationship between assessment weighting and online student interactions in discussion forums is also measured and analyzed. Section VII identifies the limitations of this study and concludes that the CSCI 1150 course, in hybrid delivery mode, continues to provide as good, if not a better provision, than the previous traditional face-to-face delivery method.
The growth of e-Learning has blurred the boundaries of educational modes [22]. Higher education institutions and academics use a wide range of terms to describe ways in which students may engage with their studies, including oncampus, face-to-face, off-campus, open education, distance education, external study, online education, e-Learning, flexible learning, blended learning and hybrid. Both Lund and Volet [23] and Schlosser and Simonson [24] have suggested that there is limited consensus on the meanings of these terms, and a degree of confusion for academics, administrators and students exists within the university sector. For each learning environment listed above, there are distinct attributes that help locate and define them in a typological structure. For example, an on-campus mode relates to "
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