Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Blended learning is often considered to be too costly to meet teaching in the traditional context. This paper questions such an assertion by examining the outcome and reflecting on the use of HTML and podcasts to replace a single traditional accounting lecture. The context was staff absence due to illness at the very end of a module, but the relevance could equally apply to student absences – can students make up for a missed lecture? The study was unique in the sense that it was without an experimental effect, the member of staff was genuinely ill and blended learning was all that was available to replace the lecture. Papers on new approaches to education are almost always the result of planned research and are often highly suspect simply because students and staff are reacting to the experiment itself rather than the content. The comment from reviewers that this paper needed to be replicated in other contexts was not realistic given that the lecturer has now thankfully recovered! The outcome showed no significant difference in assessment scores between blended and traditional deliveries but a significant difference in outcomes between high and low usage of the blended material and a high level of acceptance from students. Reflections on the cost of the exercise in time and money question the standards reported in the literature. The argument here is that funding such educational innovation obstructs the object of the research as unnecessarily high standards are advocated as justification. There are in practice no benefits beyond ‘good enough’. The notion that funding such research is a waste of money and adversely affects development is not a popular conclusion in the academic world!
Author: RP Fox
Institution: University of Salford
Language: English
Topic: Online and Blended Learning
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W588603393