Investigating Factors on Quality in Blended Learning Environments: A Research Model

7/29/2019 Investigating Factors on Quality in Blended Learning Environments: A Research Model

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Investigating Factors on Quality in Blended Learning

Environments: A Research Model

BaoYng Teresa Liew1,*, Myunghee Kang2, and Jeongyeon Kim3

1,2 Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea3 Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, South Korea

{[email protected]| [email protected]| [email protected]}

Abstract. Blended learning is gaining lots of attention among educators and hasbecome a mainstream, pervasive learning delivering mode. It is the combination

of face to face class and online learning class with the use of technologies.

Many researchers found out that blended learning approach is able to increase

the retention rates of learners compare to using only online classes. Therefore,

this paper aims to develop a research model based on previous literature review

in order to investigate the factors that impact on the quality of blended learning

environment. Previous research show that self-efficacy which acts as motivators

and learning presence (teaching presence and cognitive presence) during the

learning process is important variables which influence on learning outcomes

(satisfaction and achievement). This paper proposed a research model that ex-

amines the relationship between self-efficacy, teaching presence, cognitive

presence and learning outcomes (satisfaction and achievement) and whether the

motivators and learning presence factors predict learning outcomes in blendedlearning environment. This proposed research model could be guidelines for not

only educators in design their course (instructional design) but also for develop-

ers to know what factors affect students using an online learning environment

so that they could design a better system or platform.

Keywords: Blended learning environment, TESCL Model, learning presence,

learning outcomes, motivators

1 IntroductionTodays students have been growing up in a fast-paced digital world and also com-

municating across the world via computer or cell phone is a just a snap for them. In

addition to that, what surprises teachers most are that these 21 st century students are

acquiring 21st century skills by themselves. They have taught themselves to network

and find solutions. This trend has rightfully caused a stir in the education community

and has called for reform in education system. Since early of 21st century, many re-

searchers have started to research and investigate to find out what todays learners

are? According to a research report by education evolving1

in the year 2005, they

1 http://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/Tech-Savvy-Students.pdf
mailto:%[email protected]%7Cmailto:[email protected]%7Chttp://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/Tech-Savvy-Students.pdfhttp://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/Tech-Savvy-Students.pdfmailto:[email protected]%7Cmailto:%[email protected]%7C


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summarized that todays learners think technology is important to their education,

view internet as communication tool, can multitask while online, want personalized

learning, thrive in networking situations and etc. All these are evident showing that

the previous (20th

century) and current (21st

century) century learning is much differ-

ent in terms of skills and perceptions, the need for a new educational model, a serious

rethinking of the nature of schooling, its goals, pedagogies, curriculum, structures,

and assumptions is persistently urgently especially students today are digitally fo-

cused and require new skills that would meet up the needs in future. However, to date,

how many universities are using technologies in their courses? According to M.D.

Roblyer, Aoraon H, Doering[1], educators will use new methods if they can see clear-

ly compelling reasons to do so. Many educators look to educational research for evi-

dence of technologys present and potential benefits. However, even though tec hnol-

ogy has been introduced into education since 1950s but to date research results havenot made strong cases on impact on teaching and learning. In addition to that, to many

people, a Learning Management System (LMS) which is heavily used by institutions

and universities is just for managing the traditional classrooms resources like upload

of files or announcements by professors. In addition to that, it has been widely cited

that teachers have been using ICT infrequently and when used, it is for information

transmission rather than the facilitation of students knowledge construction [2, 3]

which is similar for students too. Based on 2011 EduCause Center for Applied Re-

search (ECAR) report2, 52% of the students think that technology enable them to

access to resources and progress reports easily whereas only 33% of the students think

that technology help the learning more engage and relevant.

According to Kang et.al [4], our education paradigm has shifted from teach-

ing centered into student centered which students have own choices to not onlychoose what they want to study but also how and why certain topics interested them

to study .In order to allow students to freely choose what they wanted to learn during

certain period, technologies have become one important factor in supporting this edu-

cation shift. At the same time, Kang et. al. [4] had developed a systematic and holistic

quality assurance model called Technology Enhanced Student Centered Learning

(TESCL) model which consisted of variables that impact of the learning outcome of

technology enhanced student centered learning environment. TESCL model is one

holistic model to test the quality of online learning in higher education. However, to

date, not many researches were conducted to validate this model. Therefore, this

research aims to introduce TESCL model into a blended learning environment and to

validate the model in a blended learning environment.

The content of the paper is as follows: In section 2 and Section 3 the authors de-

scribe blended learning environment and TESCL Model respectively. In section 4

research purpose and research questions are described. Section 5 describes the metho-

dology of the study. We draw our conclusion and future work in Section 6.

2 http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103pdf.pdf
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103pdf.pdfhttp://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1103/ERS1103pdf.pdf


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2 Blended Learning EnvironmentRecently, educators have shown much interest in blended learning. According to Ace-

lajado [5], blended learning is a form of teaching that integrates technology and that

blended learning is rooted by idea that learning is a continuous process and not just a

one-time event. Whitelock & Jelfs [6], Dzakiria, Mustafa & Abu Bakar [7] and Dris-

coll [8] had defined blended learning as (1) traditional learning with web-based on-

line approaches; (2) media and tools deployed in a learning environment; and (3) a

number of pedagogical approaches regardless of the technology used in each case.

Furthermore, Waterhouse [9] and Som Naidu [10] also indicated that blended learning

is a learning environment that students get to learn outside of classroom. In addition

to that, it also offers learners a more flexible learning environment without the con-

straint of time and place. Valdez [11] found that there was a significant difference in

the performance of the partial blended learning and the full blended learning groups.

Robles [12] who conducted a six-week quasi experiment to determine the effect of

blended learning on the performance in Algebra showed that there was a significant

difference between the pretest and posttest scores of each group.

Although blended learning bring a lot of benefits, to apply blended learning

environment in a course can be challenging for both educators and students. Accord-

ing to Dzakiria et. al. [7], in order to provide successful blended learning teaching,

students need to be independent learners, with good time management skills, and feel

comfortable using technology. Furthermore, Rovai et. al. [13] conducted a research to

assess the levels of student satisfaction between the traditional face to face course and

blended learning course regarding classroom climate, learning needs, learner efficacy,

interaction and appropriate format for the content and found out that the traditionalcourses students expressed more satisfaction in all of the areas compared to blended

learning groups. Previous research also showed that no significant differences of

learning outcomes between face-to-face, online or blended learning.

3 TESCL ModelWang and Kang [14] had proposed the Cybergogy model which consisted of social,

cognitive and emotional presence which stated that engaged learning can be promoted

when students perceive all three of these domains in an online learning environment.

In addition to that, Kang et al. [4] extended the Cybergogy model and developed

Technology-Enhanced Student-Centered Learning (TESCL) model which incorpo-

rates core indicators that required especially for technology enhanced learning envi-

ronment. This model gives the holistic view of successful online learning by present-

ing the relationship between learners motivation (before learning process), presence

(during learning process) and learning outcome (after learning process) [4] as shown

in Figure 1. All the variables before and during the learning process could affect the

learning outcome of the technology enhanced learning environment.

As mentioned in TESCL model [4], if a student is not motivated to learn,

they are less likely to spend their time and effort in learning and thus wont bring any


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improvement in learning outcome and vise versus. Four indicators were defined at the

before stage of learning process which are goal orientation, task value, attribution and

self-efficacy. In this research, self-efficacy is chosen as motivator in blended learning

environment. According to Bandura [15], self-efficacy refers to judgments of per-

sonal capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required attaining

designed types of objectives. Self-efficacy is contextually specific in that it closely

connects with specific performance situations that are dependent on the external con-

ditions of learning or the attributes of a task [16]. Other indicators such as goal orien-

tation, task value and attribution do not suit into our context.

Fig. 1. TESCL Model (Kang et. al., 2010)

During the learning process, telepresence, teaching presence and learning

presence (cognitive presence, emotional presence and social presence) are three im-

portant indicators for successful technology enhanced learning environment. As for

this research, only teaching presence and cognitive presence are used to predict the

learning outcome of our blended learning environment. According to Kang et. al.[4],

teaching presence is influenced by instructional design and instructional implementa-

tion. In addition to that, according to them, learning authenticity is closely related to

teaching presence and could be used to foster meaningful learning. Learning authen-

ticity is defined as students perception of one learning process and environment

[17]. Cognitive presence is one important factor in facilitating learners engagement,achievement and satisfaction in online learning [14]. Cognitive presence, the sense of

being there cognitively, has been mainly researched by constructivists who argue

that cognitive presence reflects higher-order knowledge acquisition and application in

online learning [18]. According to cognitive engagement theory, knowledge construc-

tion has three factors: information acquisition, information transformation and know-

ledge construction [14, 19]. Therefore, a high level of cognitive presence should be

able to facilitate information acquisition, transformation and knowledge construction.


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In the cognition research sector, an individuals knowledge construction investigates

the way an individual optimizes individual relevance and meaning through the know-

ledge construction process.

Finally, the after stage of TESCL model is to assess the learning outcome of one

technology enhanced learning environment. In this research, satisfaction and

achievement are used to assess the blended learning environment. For satisfaction,

students are asked to evaluate their blended learning experience after completing the

program and the items of questions moves beyond how the students liked the learn-

ing. For example, (1) the relevance of objectives, (2) the ability of the course to main-

tain interest, (3) the amount and appropriateness of interactive exercise, (4) the ease of

navigation and etc. Lastly, achievement is an indicator to measure the learning results

[4]. Usually achievement includes the scores of exam or quizzes.

4 Research Purpose and Research QuestionsPrevious reviews have shown that motivators such as self-efficacy, teaching presence

and cognitive presence play a substantial role in technology enhanced learning envi-

ronment. With blended learning getting more interest nowadays, the factors that im-

pact on the successful use of blended learning should be examined. Therefore the

purpose of this research is to investigate the factors that predict the learning outcomes

of blended learning. Based on previous research, this research is going to verify the

relationships between learning motivation, teaching presence, learning presence, and

learning outcome (achievement and satisfaction). The research questions are follow-

ing and research model is shown in Figure 2.

1.Do learning motivation (self-efficacy), teaching presence and cognitive presencesignificantly relate to learning outcomes (achievement and satisfaction) in a

blended learning environment?

2.Do self-efficacy, teaching presence and cognitive presence predict learning out-comes (achievement and satisfaction) in a blended learning environment?

Fig. 2. Purposed Research Model


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5 Methodology5.1 Blended Learning EnvironmentThe blended learning environment of this research consisted of face to face sessions

and one online learning platform. Basically this is an 80% online class where students

will use an online commercial platform to study by themselves independently. All the

class materials and assignments are available online. Face to face classes consisted of

once a week speaking class with native speaker to practice their speaking skill and

once a week class with a local professor on question and answer session. This Q& A

session was created to help students better understand their course material. During

this class time, students will be introduced to each unit of the course and are encour-

aged to ask questions that relate to the areas of each unit which they found difficult.The online commercial platform of the class is shown in Figure 3. This is a very sim-

ple and easy to use platform. Only the most basic required features are included for

the ease of students and to reduce the difficulty and confusion for the students. Basi-

cally students just need to click on the My course menu and they will get all the

class materials from there including reading, speaking, writing, listening and assign-

ments. As for community, students could search for people who use the same online

platform to exchange language.

Fig. 3. Interface of Commercial Online Platform used in this study


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5.2 Data CollectionA survey with total of 33 items will be distributed end of the semester to investigate

the motivator factor (self-efficacy) and learning process factors (cognitive presence

and teaching presence in a blended learning environment on the impact of learning

outcome of the students (satisfaction and achievement). All the survey items will be

designed based on the course structure and context. All the collected surveys will be

analyzed using SPSS on correlation and regression analysis. Table 1 shows the brief

details of instruments used and total of items of each variable. From Table 1, we

could see that self-efficacy is adopted from MSLC [20], Cognitive presence is

adopted from Kang et. al. [21], teaching presence is adopted from Swan [21] and Kim

[22], satisfaction is adopted from Shin & Chan [24] and finally achievement is the

final score given to the students by the course instructor.

Table 1. Instruments of the Study

Variables Instruments Items

Self-Efficacy MSLC (1991) 8

Cognitive Presence Kang et. al. (2007) 13

Teaching Presence Swan (2008) & Kim (2008) 6

Satisfaction Shin & Chan (2004) 6

Achievement Researchers

Total 33

6 ConclusionThis research investigates and examines the factors that predict the learning outcome

in a blended learning environment. With the increase popularity of blended learning

within educators nowadays, this research could be guidelines for not only educators in

design their course (instructional design) but also for developers to know what factors

affect students using an online learning environment so that they could design a better

system or platform.

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Investigating Factors on Quality in Blended Learning Environments: A Research Model