Assessing Student Transitions During Blended Learning Activities

Assessment surveys of students are often conducted in order to evaluate blended learning activities. Most surveys measure responses to questions which are based on students' subjective impressions. The purpose of this study is to examine participants' assessments made during the transitional phase in a blended learning environment at a Japanese national university. Students were enrolled in two-unit bachelor or master's courses which were taught by the same professor and were blended learning courses. Students attended face-to-face classes and were also able to access on-line content outside of class. The total number of students with valid survey data was 159 (67 bachelors and 92 masters). A survey questionnaire which consisted of 10 questions measured the self-assessment of students' on-line learning experience. E-learning evaluation, learning habits and learning strategies, three factors used for evaluating learning experiences, were then extracted and compared between questionnaire surveys. There are no significant differences in all factor scores between the beginnings and the ends of the courses, but there are significant differences in the third factor score, learning strategies, between bachelor and master's students at both the beginnings and the ends of the courses. These results show the coherence of learners' assessments during the course. According to the study results, it is assumed that students make their own evaluations during the course. The correlation coefficients of the first factor scores (e-learning evaluation) between the beginnings and the ends of the courses are not high, however (bachelor: r=0.46, masters: r=0.35). Therefore, some participants have changed their evaluation between the two surveys. When the differences in factor scores between the initial and final surveys are compared between high and low raters at the beginning of the course, the scores for the high raters decreases and the scores for low raters increases. These results suggest that low raters at the beginnings of the courses have become satisfied with the blended learning environment, while the high raters have become discouraged.