How Does Blended Learning Improve Education for Sustainability?

• In Event: Sustainability and peace

Proposal

1. Introduction
The use of technology in academic settings has gained popularity over the past few years, and it became an important topic of research for both scholars and educators across different disciplines. Among many endeavors to explore ways to effective teaching and learning in classrooms, blended learning is an alternative pedagogical model that has gained much attention in recent years, which is so-called the third generation of distance learning (Phipps and Merisotis 1999). Before starting the research design, we need to clear the definition of the concept “Blended Learning”. In HANDBOOK OF BLENDED LEARNING written by Graham, blended learning systems combine face-to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction. Besides, in our research: Courses of blended learning combine online instruction based on MOOCs and face-to-face instruction, which emphasizes online learning partially replaces f2f learning.
Since the 21st century, blended learning has been applied in tertiary education gradually and obtained large-scale development. In China, blended learning is regarded as a model of instruction, and as of March 15th, 2018, a total of 54 universities have conducted blended learning in 471 courses based on Xuetangx . Taking Tsinghua University as an example, a total of 124 courses were piloted as blended learning during 2013-2017, and over 42,000 students joined.
As we can see, most researches show that blended learning are more effective and more satisfactory than fully online courses and entirely tradition courses. In 2009, U.S. Department of Education conducted a systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 and published Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, which suggested blended learning was most effective, followed by online learning, and face-to-face teaching was the least effective one (Means B，Toyama Y，Murphy R，et al．2009). Institute for Research on Learning Technologies of York University conducted an online survey on college students from eight universities in Canada that are currently participating in blended teaching. The survey results showed that: 61% of students were willing to choose blended learning, 12% of students were reluctant to choose blended learning, and 12% were unsure (York University Institute for Research on Learning Technologies, 2010). At the same time, there are also some issues of blended learning that deserve our attention. In practice, some courses apply blended learning by the a simple summation of online and offline, failing to exert the superior effect of “1+1>2”(Gu Lihao et al., 2017). In addition, blended learning may also increase the extra academic burden on students while liberating teachers' workload of repeatedly teaching basic knowledge.
Actually, blended learning is playing an increasingly important role in higher education for sustainability. This study aims at the following research questions:
RQ1: Does blended learning improve education for sustainability?
RQ2: How does blended learning have an influence on students’ learning process?
2. Conceptual Framework
This study is based on Illeris's learning theory. It mainly focuses on the ‘two processes’ and the ‘three dimensions’ to understand how learning occurs. ‘Two processes’ refers to the interaction process between the individual and the environment, as well as the internal mental acquisition and processing. One of Illeris' contributions is to integrate two processes and emphasize that the two-way interaction of the two processes is the key to understanding learning problems. Among them, the acquisition process contains ‘three dimensions’ of learning: content, incentive and interaction. Content dimension refers to what can be learned, such as knowledge, skill and attitude. Incentive dimension refers to motivation and emotion during learning process. Interaction dimension means the communication and exchange between individuals and learning environment.
3. Methodology
3.1 Instrument development
In order to develop the self-report instrument, we reviewed a lot of relevant studies. And we design a comprehensive list of measures, which are based on our conceptual framework and previously validated instruments. The questionnaire consisted of 5 major parts, including Demographic Indicators, Evaluation of Learning Environment, Evaluation of Interaction, Evaluation of Learning Achievement and Evaluation of Satisfaction.
3.2 Participants
A student questionnaire has been delivered by Online Education Office of Tsinghua University towards all the courses based on blended learning in this semester. In this survey, we use Wenjuanxing(wjx.cn) as the online questionnaire tool and sent it to students enrolled in the courses during 2017-18 fall semester in Tsinghua University. From Dec.28th 2017 to Jan.10th 2018, 1520 questionnaires have been collected and 1317 of them were filled in WeChat platform. After cleaning the void samples, 1023 samples in 13 curriculums can be used in this research, which make up 67.30% of all questionnaires collected.
4. Initial Findings
This study uses the Structural Equation Modeling method to describe the relationship between observed variables and structural variables. These findings provide initial insights into the research questions.
According to this study, the blended learning approach, however, is seen as an effective approach for facilitating interaction, as the face-to-face component brings learners (geographically) together and enables both verbal and non-verbal communication during certain parts of the course. Meanwhile, it is important for blended learning environments to foster a motivating and affective learning climate, which makes that learners feel safe, accepted and valued, and promotes positive attitudes towards the course and the instructor. In relation to this, research has pointed out that a positive affective learning climate may facilitate the learning process, and lead to positive student outcomes such as intrinsic motivation, creativity, and well-being.

Authors

• Weitong Liu, Tsinghua University

• Xiaoxiao Wang, Tsinghua University

• Shijie Yu, Tsinghua University

• Ruoxi Ding, Tsinghua University