‘The best of both worlds’: BNU research finds that students prefer blended learning
Research conducted at Buckinghamshire New University (BNU) earlier this year found that students prefer ‘blended learning’ when it comes to their studies.
Blending learning is a thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face (F2F) learning with online learning experiences, offering contact, convenience and continued communication for both education providers and students through a seamless and complementary flow of learning in the associated discussion forums.
Funded by one of BNU’s flagship impact centres (Impact Centre for the Advancement of Learning), the research case study, led by Barbara Nicolls, Senior Lecturer at the university, explored the 2022/23 Postgraduate Certificate in Practice Education students’ perception of their educational experience in the online discussion forum, designed according to the Community of Inquiry framework.
Preliminary findings showed that cognitive presences – an important indicator of quality of an online learning experience – was manifested to a certain extent in the online discussion forum, with 3-5 students individually posting weekly responses to the teacher-assigned weekly readings.
Further conclusions drawn included students being more comfortable learning online in small groups, citing fear of being judged by others and lack of self-confidence in text-based discussions in public domains.
“Blending Learning seems to be particularly successful where the blend is synchronous F2F and synchronous virtual sessions when students can actively engage with the activities with peers.”
“The majority of students enjoy the asynchronous virtual activities such as discussion board text-based writing as well as small group synchronous meetings in their small group ClassCollaborate rooms.”
“One important factor for course teams to think about is designing the blended learning environment with the three presences of teaching, social and cognitive. I hope to extend the findings to incorporate GenAI in these three presences in the future.” Said Nicolls.
Drawing on research conclusions, Nicolls added:
“As text-based online discussion forum represents a form of asynchronous communication, it is an important pedagogical tool – but for students to have a positive educational experience in blended learning programmes, it is recommended that its potential be harnessed for community building, active engagement, language development, critical thinking, and written communication in order to demonstrate feedback literacy teaching presences, which in turn fosters social presences that leads to cognitive presences.”
To read more on Nicolls’ research and findings, follow this link to , a biannual publication that showcases the breadth of research activities being undertaken at the university, including articles on the many and varied areas of research being undertaken by BNU academics and those funded by BNU’s Impact Centres.