Yes, I do truly love my Prius, but here I am discussing another kind of hybrid: a course that involves both online and classroom learning. An Inside Higher Ed report of new research from South Texas College indicates that 82 percent of students in hybrid courses were successful (that is, that got an A, B, or C)  compared to 72 percent in classroom courses and 60 percent in distance courses.

While the study was not without flaws (confounding variable of instructor grading, limited population, small sample size, short time frame) it echoes the findings of another study we noted a while back. The U.S. Department of Education released a meta-analysis which concluded that hybrid, or “blended,” courses could be more effective than either wholly Web- or classroom-based courses.

In my totally unscientific anecdotal experience, I concur. Although I have been a long-time advocate of online learning, I am finding myself increasingly drawn to a mix of online and F2F. While I would never desire to return to the day of lecture-only courses, I am beginning to find my online only courses a bit of a drag. Is it burnout? Is it because I am getting students who require more prodding? It seems counter-intuitive that it is tougher to teach online now than 10 years ago because we have so many more tools to create social presense; more multi-media opportunities for engagement.

Maybe it does come down to the types of students in the courses. Perhaps in past, only the very motivated who needed online to move ahead in their education would stuck it out in online line courses. Now, even students who could come to class will take a course online, and may indeed need more hand-holding. As one researcher noted:

“…how well students perform in a given course-delivery system is almost certainly tied to their individual needs. Students who require more prodding in order to get the work done probably perform better with the increased sense of accountability that comes with time in the classroom. Students who are more self-motivated, or those whose personal obligations cause them to benefit from maximum flexibility, might do best in courses that are exclusively online.”

So perhaps that is why hybrid coureses are more successful–they work for a broader swath of both students and faculty. The best of both worlds.

Tags: blended, hybrid, learning, online education, research, teaching, technology

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Ann writes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.