ADOPTING BLENDED LEARNING : AN ANALYSIS AND REVIEW OF STUDENTS

ACCEPTANCE IN UiTM PAHANGHaslinda Noradzan, Azniza Ahmad Zaini, Fazlin Marini Hussain,Roger Canda

Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences and Faculty of Business Management, UiTM Pahang

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the findings of an empirical study in adopting Blended Learning (BL) approach for teaching diploma students in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Pahang. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 86 final year students of Diploma in Computer Science registered for the programming course and 67 students of Diploma in Banking registered for the Malaysian economy course to assess their accept-ance towards the new approach. The students perception on i-Learn Portal usage for BL approach as well as the benefits of implementing Blended Learning approach in their learning process were also identified. The findings reveal that the students could adapt with the BL approach since most of the students are computer and Internet literate and gradually adapting to the mixed approaches of assessments. The findings also show that most of the students agreed that the implementation of Blended Learning should be continued corresponding with the development of tech-nology, but there are some suggestions on improvement of the Learning Management System (LMS) portal to achieve the benefits that Blended Learning offers either in physical or virtual classrooms.Keywords: Blended Learning, virtual classroom, students acceptance, LMS portal

Introduction and Research Background

Blended Learning approach was initiated in 2009 and the univer-sitys aim is to achieve 30% of all courses to be conducted online by June 2013.

This study was conducted in UiTM Pahang for assessing the stu-dents acceptance towards blended learning approach in teaching and learning process.

Other objectives are to investigate the students view on i-Learn portal and the benefits that they found when learning sessions are being conducted using blended learning approach.

Methodology

Self-administrative questionnaire was distributed to a random sam-ple of 153 students from CS110 and BM112 students during the June - October 2013 semester.

Questionnaire was design into three sections; demographic profile, hardware and Internet facilities, students view on blended learning ap-proach and students view on i-Learn portal.

The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sci-ences (SPSS), Version 21.

Descriptive analysis were used to investigate how the students per-ceive blended learning approach in their learning process.

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FindingsTable 1: Descriptive Statistics of Respondents Profile

Measure Items Frequency PercentageProgramme CS110 (FSKM) 86 56.21

BM112 (FPP) 67 43.79Gender Female 92 60.13

Male 61 39.87Have Internet at home Yes 110 71.9

No 43 28.1

Table 2 : Studentss View towards the Implementation of Blended Learning Approach

Items

Percentage

MeanStrongly Disagree

Disagree Neither Agree

nor Disa-gree

Agree Strongly Agree

BL decreases costs for individual students (printing)

1.96 3.92 17.65 42.48 33.99 4.03

BL supports ideas and experience sharing amongst students

0.65 7.19 11.76 52.29 27.45 3.99

The lecturer helped to guide when using BL 1.31 2.61 20.26 50.98 23.53 3.94BL helps students to prepare well for class ses-sions

0.65 3.92 22.22 50.98 22.22 3.90

BL approach would be more effective than tra-ditional approach

2.61 7.84 28.10 33.33 11.76 3.39

BL increase the study workload for students 17.65 46.41 28.76 5.23 0.65 2.24Table 3 : Students View on i-Learn Portal as Platform for Blended Learning

ItemsPercentage Mean

Strongly Disagree

Disagree Neither Agree nor Disagree

Agree Strongly Agree

i-Learn portal is user friendly portal 1.31 1.96 16.34 54.90 19.61 3.96Notes in i-Learn portal help in teaching and learning process

0.65 1.96 16.34 52.94 27.45 4.05

No technical problems when accessing i-Learn portal

4.58 16.34 41.83 28.10 8.50 3.20

Functionalities provded on the i-Learn portal is sufficient for BL

0.00 3.27 22.88 53.59 19.61 3.90

Conclusion and Recommendation

60.8% of the students prefer balance mixture of online and face-to-face learning, 13.1% of them prefer to spend more time using online with minimum face-to-face, 11.8% prefer face-to-face with no online learning and 9.8% prefer to have 100% online learning.

Access to the computer and Internet is very important to the stu-dents to support the blended learning approach in teaching and learning process.

i-LeC should prepare some enhancement in i-Learn portal for the functionalities and the reliability of the portal and introduce a few fea-tures to support blended learning such as notifications to the students.

Further study is currently being carried out to determine the stu-dents academic performance as a result of using blended learning and it is suggested to have larger sample size to represent the population of the students.

Discussions

Out of 153 students, 71.9% of them claimed that they do have Inter-net connection at home that could support the implementation of the blended learning approach.

76.47% of them agreed that they can reduce the printing cost when blended learning approach takes place, probably because of the acces-sible to unlimited online learning resources.

79.74% of them percieved that blended lerning supports ideas and experiences sharing amongst students as the students get connected with the lecturers and friends through the LMS portal.

5.88% of them felt that their study workload had not increased when adopting blended learning probably because they successfully adapting the combination of tradtional face to face lecture and online learning.