Does institution support matter? Blended learning approach in the higher education sector

What is it about?

This study aims to investigate factors affecting students’ intention to join blended learning courses in higher education sector using Community of Inquiry framework and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model. Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model was employed to develop a new research framework while constructs in the Community of Inquiry are Stimulus and constructs from UTAUT are considered as Organism and Response. A survey was conducted with undergraduate students in a Hong Kong higher institution. It was found that Teaching Presence (TP), Social Presence (SP) and Cognitive Presence (CP) were associated with performance expectancy, social influence and effort expectancy respectively. Performance expectancy and effort expectancy were associated with social influence. Social influence was associated with students’ attitude towards blended learning. Institution support was not related to the students’ attitude towards blended learning in the post-pandemic period. Attitude towards blended learning was associated with their behavioral intention to participate in blended learning. Online and offline tools could be adopted to improve the students’ acceptance towards the blended learning approach.

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Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The blended learning adoption was changed dramatically after the pandemic. Nowadays, institutions are well equipped with Wi-Fi in their campuses and web cameras in the classrooms. Teachers and students are all familiar with technology (Wut & Xu, 2021). It is prime time to address this issue again. The study also offers important insights about blended teaching and learning

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