Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Blended Instructional Model in an Undergraduate Foundation Course in Engineering

 

As technological advancement continues, educators have been motivated more than ever to improve student learning by blending technological tools with traditional face-to-face lectures in the classroom. Amongst the new pedagogical models implemented by educators in recent years, the blended or the mixed-mode model shows the most promise and has been widely accepted in higher education (Dziuban et al., 2018). The blended instructional model integrates face-to-face instruction with online instruction (Graham, 2013). In many blended models, student learning is self-directed as the course material is learned at the learner’s own pace in the online component. As opposed to face-to-face instruction where students are passive listeners, the blended model also fosters active engagement in the learning process. Enhanced student satisfaction and greater student success rate in comparison to face-to-face instruction are some of the key benefits of the blended learning model as observed through literature (Dziuban et al., 2018).

 

To date, research studies examining the efficacy of the blended model in engineering education are almost non-existent. In efforts to address this void, a pilot study was performed in a foundation course in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. The purpose of this research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the flipped, blended instructional model in teaching engineering courses.

 

Through this presentation, the speakers will share their findings of a pilot study on implementing a blended instructional model in teaching an engineering undergraduate course in a large classroom setting. The presentation will demonstrate comparative data for the undergraduate course taught across two semesters by the same instructor using a traditional face-to-face model in the first semester and a redesigned, flipped classroom blended model in the subsequent semester. The research questions addressed through this pilot study are the following:

 

• Do students’ perform better in the flipped, blended session, compared to the face-to-face session?
• Do student perceptions of instruction and student satisfaction change when a course is transitioned from a face-to-face to a flipped, blended model?
• Are students more engaged in a flipped, blended instructional model?

 

The undergraduate course chosen for this pilot study is Engineering Analysis: Dynamics, a foundation course required for all engineering undergraduate students in any subfield of engineering. The course is mostly catered toward engineering majors in their junior year with typical enrollments approaching 300 students. In the first semester, the instructor delivered all course content using the traditional face-to-face model. In this model, all lecture topics were discussed in detail in class using a mix of PowerPoint presentations and hand written problem solving sessions facilitated by document cameras. All pre and post class lectures and notes are made available to students both before and after the face-to-face sessions through the learning management system, Instructure Canvas.

 

In the subsequent semester, the course was redesigned and delivered using the blended model, in a flipped-classroom approach. In the redesigned blended model, half of the course content was delivered online and the students attended 15, 75 minute, in-class sessions as opposed to 45, 50 minute, in-class sessions in the traditional face-to-face model, the previous semester. For the online content, instructional videos were created in three formats for the different course learning objectives: Light board videos; voiceover PowerPoints and voiceover PowerPoints with annotations. The length of the instructional videos ranged from 10-40 minutes. The blended course was structured into weekly modules. The online content for each weekly module was made available to the students through Canvas at the beginning of each week. Students reviewed the online content in their own time and the class met once a week for face-to-face lectures. The lectures were comprised of a brief review of the weekly concepts followed by majority of the class time being spent on instructor-led problem solving sessions.

 

Research Methods

The pilot study was a collaborative effort between the course instructor, an instructional designer and researchers from the university’s Center for Distributed Learning. The course redesign and transformation has taken place in approximately eight months. The research team has used multiple methods to compare the face-to-face course with the blended course to investigate the research questions. Student performance in the different course assessments administered throughout the semester and the final student grade was the first form of data comparison used to investigate the effect of blended instructional model in student learning in the engineering discipline. The majority of the course assessments for this study were administered electronically in a proctored learning and testing facility maintained by the college of engineering at the university. The formats and contents of all students’ assessments in the course were kept similar across both semesters of face-to-face instruction and blended instruction. This was done to ensure that the face-to-face course served as the control group against which the blended course is compared.

 

To assess student satisfaction, two forms of online surveys were used by the research team The first is the standard university-administered student perception of instruction survey, a blanket survey used to assess all types of courses offered by the university and administered through Instructure Canvas. Because this data is standardized, it is automatically collected and easily compared across semesters. Second, an online survey was used to assess the online and the face-to-face component of the blended course created and administered by the research team. The objective of this survey was to delve into a detailed evaluation of student satisfaction on the different aspects of the blended course.

 

Results and Implications

Preliminary results obtained from this pilot study were promising. A comparison of student grades across two semesters shows improved student performance and greater student retention rate in the course taught using the blended instructional model. Student satisfaction as gauged through student perception of instruction and the comprehensive survey is very positive for the blended model. For example, 88 percent of students would take the course again in this format. Student engagement as observed through number of video views is also very high for the blended course. Thus, the initial results from the pilot study indicate that the blended instructional model has the potential to improve student success rates in engineering education.

 

As the blended instructional model continues to gain its popularity in higher education, its implementation in different disciplines is inevitable. A discipline specific pilot study such as the one the research team will present here can shed light on the effectiveness of this novel teaching model in engineering, specifically. The authors will discuss the detailed findings of the pilot study they conducted in a foundation course in engineering. Through this presentation, the research team aspires to motivate educators in the field to embrace and implement the blended instructional model in engineering education.

 

Interactive Presentation

While this session will be a presentation, the facilitators plan to engage audience using videos that demonstrate the course content, polling to gauge the audience’s prior knowledge, and other interactive strategies to communicate the research findings. We also will provide opportunities for participants to share their successes using blended learning in specific disciplines. Finally, we hope to find colleagues interested in the possibility of collaborative research in this area.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

Graham, C. R. (2013). Emerging practice and research in blended learning. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education, (3rd ed., pp. 333–350). New York: Routledge.

 

Dziuban, C., Graham, C. R., Moskal, P.D., Norberg, A., Sicilia, N. (2018). Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies., International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, Volume 15, No. 3.