Blended Learning Effectiveness: Exploring Learner Characteristics and Learner Outcomes

The study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of blended learning environment in terms of learner characteristics and learner outcomes. To this end, a survey was administered to ۷۰ students of TEFL in the e-learning campus of Iran University of Science and Technology. The characteristics/background of the learners included self-regulation, computer competence, workload management, social and family support, attitude to blended learning, gender, and age; and the outcomes included satisfaction, motivation, and construction of knowledge. The results indicated that considering self-regulation, the highest agreements were related to environment structuring, while the highest disagreements were obtained by task strategies. Participants were found more skilled in Web browsing, email packages, and Word processing programs. The results also revealed that the highest agreements were found for family support rather than social support as half of the participants argued that their workmates did not support them in balancing their workload. Learner intrinsic motivation in interest and enjoyment in tasks were reported to be the highest, and the participants’ satisfaction was hierarchically related to the instructor, face-to-face sessions, course content, technology used, and interaction. Considering knowledge construction, learning the course content through the instructor's facilitation and knowledge construction through learning activities were also found more effective.

Keywords:

Blended learning , learner characteristics , learner outcomes , MA students of TEFL