Keywords

1 Introduction

The rapid changes in this era which resulted from the advancement of sciences and technologies have provided many opportunities for development in most fields including education. It was found that many new educational tools, systems and applications such as Kahoot!, Prezi, Quizizz, Padlet, and many more have been developed and introduced in the educational settings. Their adoptions are widely found throughout the world. As such, there are many educational concepts being introduced in the educational word such as online learning, e-learning, flipped classroom, virtual classroom, blended learning, etc.

The advancement of technology nowadays provides opportunities in education including the adoption of blended learning. Blended learning is an approach that involves the combination of classroom and online education [1]. Oweis [2] stated that blended learning can be in the mixed forms of direct and indirect online learning. It is conducted using the internet and intranet. Furthermore, the indirect learning takes place concurrently in the traditional classes. Ceylan [3] defined blended learning as a computer-mediated instructional strategy that involves and uses technology and emphases student-teacher relationship. Students’ achievement, engagement and independence in learning improved with its adoption too.

Twelve most common types of blended learning were identified by Teachthought [4]. These include Station Rotation Blended Learning, Lab Rotation Blended Learning, Remote Blended Learning (also referred as Enriched Virtual), Flex Blended Learning, the ‘Flipped Classroom’ Blended Learning, Individual Rotation Blended Learning, Project-Based Blended Learning, Self-Directed Blended Learning, Inside-Out Blended Learning, Outside-In Blended Learning, Supplemental Blended Learning, and Mastery-Based Blended Learning. Which type of blended learnings to adopt will depend on many factors such as students’ learning styles, nature of the subjects, the preferences of the teachers and students, etc.

Every individual has his/her own preferences of learning styles that may affect his/her learning outcomes and influence his/her ability to attain information, to interact with peers and teachers, and also the participation in learning experiences [5]. A study found that blended learning differs according to students’ learning styles [5]. The differences can be either their preferences to have blended learning for different subjects/courses, learning settings, or on different devices. Blended learning can be held in the classroom during class hours or outside the class [6]. In addition, blended learning can also be adopted as preparation before a class and review after a class [6]. It was found that there was no significant difference between outside-the-classroom blended class with the inside-the-classroom blended class [6]. Shantakumari [7] found that students’ perceptions of blended learning differed with courses.

Furthermore, studies also found that the important factors for the effectiveness of blended learning include students’ characteristics and the blended learning design features  [8]. Thus, educators should be aware of the relationship between the students’ characteristics, design features and learning outcomes.

There are benefits of implementing blended learning in educational institutions. Kintu, Zhu and Kagambe [8] stated that students’ levels of knowledge construction increase in blended learning as the analytical skills are created in them. They found that students established assessing ability and the ability in evaluating knowledge sources analytically. In addition, blended learning helped students to develop leadership skills and confidence, gained new theoretical knowledge and needs analysis as well as the application of theoretical knowledge to practical educational projects [9]. Oweis [2] found that students who were taught with a blended learning method for English showed high motivation and performed significantly better than students who were taught using the traditional teaching method.

This project aims to examine students’ preferences on blended learning, particularly Information Technology students. It is hoped that the findings of the project will help educators to implement blended learning effectively.

2 Methodology

2.1 Sample

The project was carried out on a convenient sample on a small scale of 70 undergraduate students at a Malaysia private university in a period of one semester. These students enrolled for the Information Technology Program. Students’ ages ranged from 18 to 27 years old. The sample consisted of multiracial (Malay, Chinese, Indian, etc.).

2.2 Instrument

The project involved a set of questionnaires which consisted of 2 sections (Sections A and B).

  1. 1.

    Section A: This section is to collect students’ general information such as gender, age, nationality, race, course and etc.

  2. 2.

    Section B: This section consists of questions on students’ preferences on blended learning such as the preferred fields/subjects to implement blended learning and preferred time to conduct blended learning.

The questionnaires were validated by a panel of experts in education. The reliability test was run and generated a Cronbach Alpha Coefficient of .729, which indicated that the instruments generated good reliability coefficient and implied that it has internal consistency.

The questionnaire was given to the respondents after they experienced the blended learning approach. The data collected was analysed using SPSS for descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA. 5% significance level was used to run the tests.

Furthermore, qualitative data was collected via interview with students in order to gather information to compliment the quantitative data. Questions such as “Do you like to learn with blended learning?”, “Why do you prefer to learn with blended learning in this Mathematics/Information Technology/Languages?”, “Why do you like to learn online inside/outside the classroom?”, etc.

2.3 Procedure

The blended learning approach adopted was online learning mixed with face-to-face learning in the classroom. In this project, the blended learning tools used were Multimedia Learning System (MMLs), Quizzes, Kahoot!, Prezi, Youtube and G-Suite Education (such as Google Classroom).

The MMLs is a system developed by the university and used in the university. It allows the uploading of lecture notes, tutorial questions, exercises, assignments/projects, quiz questions and making announcements. In addition, MMLs permits the conduct of quizzes and tests online which students attempt the questions within a stipulated date and time duration. The reports of the quizzes and tests will be generated for lecturers. The Discussion Board is another function integrated in MMLs.

For this project and with the blended learning approach, all the lecture notes and tutorial questions were uploaded into the MMLs for students. Also, the lecture materials were delivered via Prezi in which the lecturers designed and created their own notes presentation using Prezi. Thus, besides the face-to-face delivery of knowledge and concepts, students learnt through MMLs and Prezi. The assignments and projects were also uploaded in MMLs. Furthermore, online quizzes and tests were given to students via MMLs, Quizizz and Kahoot!. However, students were playing online games with Quizizz and Kahoot!. Videos were watched from Youtube. Google Classroom was used for the assignments/project’s submission. Discussion among students and with lecturers were conducted either face-to-face or via MMLs.

The online learning was used to support students’ activities inside the classroom, outside the classroom, before the class as class preparation and after the class as revision.

3 Findings and Discussions

This section discusses the findings generated from the analysis. The findings on students’ preferred field or subject to learn with blended learning will be presented and discussed first, then followed by students’ preferences of having blended learning in classroom or outside the classroom, and finally students’ preferences of having blended learning before the class as class preparation or after the class as revision will be discussed.

Students in the sample was asked to give their preferences of implementing blended learning on the 3 fields which they enrolled in the semester, i.e. Mathematics, Information Technology subject and Languages. It was found that 30 (42.86%) students preferred to have blended learning in Mathematics, another 30 (42.86%) students preferred that blended learning be adopted for the Information Technology field, while 10 (14.28%) students have the preference on Languages subjects (Table 1).

Table 1 Frequency and percentage of the field or subject students’ would prefer to learn with blended learning based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

Further analysis was done on categorising students into three different groups based on their mathematics anxiety levels. Students were grouped in such a way because this paper was a part of the whole project on reducing students’ mathematics anxiety levels using blended learning. Students’ mathematics anxiety levels were obtained from the questionnaire. These data enabled the categorisation into high, medium and low anxious groups. Findings found that there were only medium and low maths anxious students but no high anxious students.

Among 70 students, the majority of them are medium math anxious students. Figure 1 shows that only 12 (17.14%) low math anxious students while 58 (82.86%) are medium math anxious students.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Frequency and percentage of students’ based on mathematics anxiety levels

Full size image

When students were asked about their preferred subject to learn with blended learning, among the 12 low math anxious students, 5 preferred Mathematics, 4 preferred Information Technology and 3 preferred Languages. From 58 medium math anxious students, almost the same number of students preferred to have blended learning in learning Mathematics (25 students/43.1%) and Information Technology (26 students/44,83%). While there are only 7 medium math anxious students preferred to learn Languages with blended learning.

Table 2 reports that there is no significant difference between low- and medium-math anxious students on their preferences of field or subject to learn with blended learning, t(68) = .640, p > .05.

Table 2 Compare of means on the field or subject students’ would prefer to learn with blended learning based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

The results showed that there are different preferences on the subjects by students which aligned with Shantakumari [7] that students’ perceptions of blended learning differed with courses. Most students prefer blended learning in Sciences than Languages subjects. This finding contradicts with Oweis’s [2] finding that students who learnt English with blended learning were highly motivated. Students of this project feedback that they prefer blended learning in Science subjects than Languages subjects because they found that most abstract concepts could be easily understood through the systems/apps. In addition, the sample comprised Information Technology students, thus they might have the preference in Sciences subjects. However, further findings found that students of different anxiety levels showed no significant difference in their preferences with subjects. This showed that blended learning method benefits students regardless of adopting it in any subjects and anxiety levels, which can be proven from Oweis’s study [2] that students who were taught English with a blended learning method showed high motivation and performed significantly better than their counterparts who learned with the traditional teaching method and from this project that students who learned Sciences subjects and Languages subjects have no significant difference in their preferences when the blended learning method was used.

Furthermore, students in the sample were asked to give their preferences of having blended learning in the classroom or outside the classroom or both. Most of the students (27 students) preferred to have blended learning which online learning is used in both inside and outside the classroom. The least number of students, 20 students, liked to have blended learning which online learning is used outside the classroom, whereas 23 students preferred to have blended learning which online learning is used inside the classroom (Table 3).

Table 3 Frequency and percentage of students’ preferences of having blended learning in the classroom or outside the classroom
Full size table

Findings in Table 4 also show that among the 12 low math anxious students, there are an equal number of students preferred to have blended learning which online learning is used either inside the class or outside the classroom, which is 5 students respectively. Only 2 low math anxious students liked to learn via online inside the classroom and also outside the classroom. In contrast, the majority of the medium math anxious students (25 students or 43.10%) would prefer to have blended learning where they learn through online both inside and outside the classroom. It is reported that 18 and 15 students preferred to learn via online with blended learning method either in the class or outside the classroom respectively.

Table 4 Frequency and percentage of students’ preferences of having blended learning in the classroom or outside the classroom based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

As shown in Table 5, there is no significant difference between low- and medium-math anxious students on their preferences to have blended learning which online learning is implemented inside the classroom or outside the classroom, t (68) = −1.385, p > .05.

Table 5 Compare of means on students’ preferences of having blended learning in the classroom or outside the classroom based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

Even though there were students who liked to use online learning either inside the classroom or outside the classroom, most students liked to learn via online in both inside and outside the classroom with a blended learning method. Students suggested that online learning is very convenient for them to learn at any time they like, thus they prefer to learn online both inside and also outside the classroom. Even though, Miyaji’s [6] study found that there was no significant difference between outside-the-classroom blended class with the inside-the-classroom blended class, the findings of this project found further findings which indicating no significant difference among students of different anxiety levels on their preferences to have online learning with blended learning method inside the classroom or outside the classroom.

Students were also asked to indicate their preference either to have online learning with blended learning method before the class, i.e. students learn the subject materials online before they attend the class (face-to-face) as the preparation before the class, or to use online learning for revision/enhancement after they attended the class (face-to-face), or both.

Table 6 shows the findings of students’ preferences of having online learning before the class as the class preparation or after the class as the revision of teaching materials/enhancement of knowledge, or both.

Table 6 Frequency and percentage of students’ preferences of having blended learning before class as class preparation or after class as revision based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

Majority of the students, 40 students (57.14%), preferred blended learning by having online learning for their revision after the face-to-face learning in the classroom. Preparation for class via online learning before face-to-face learning recorded the lowest number of students, which is only 14 students (20.00%). There are 16 students who like to have blended learning when the online learning is used as class preparation before the face-to-face class and as revision after the face-to-face learning.

Among the 40 students who preferred blended learning by having online learning for their revision after the face-to-face learning in the classroom, there are 9 (75.00%) of the low math anxious students and 31 (53.45%) of the medium math anxious students. This is followed by 2 (16.67%) of the low math anxious students and 14 (24.14%) of the medium math anxious students who liked to have blended learning by using online learning as both class preparation before the face-to-face learning in the class and revision after the face-to-face learning. Only 1 (8.33%) low math anxious student and 13 (22.41%) medium math anxious students who liked the blended learning when they learn the materials via online before the class as class preparation.

Table 7 reported that there is no significant difference between low- and medium-math anxious students on their preferences of having blended learning when online learning is used as class preparation before the class or as revision after the class, t (68) = .314, p > .05.

Table 7 Compare of means on students’ preferences of having blended learning before class as class preparation or after class as revision based on students’ mathematics anxiety levels
Full size table

As stated by Miyaji [6] that blended learning can be adopted as preparation before a class and review after a class. This project found that most of the students preferred to learn via online after the face-to-face class. Students liked to do revision using online materials after their lecturers have delivered knowledge in the classroom. Their knowledge is enhanced by reading and doing more online activities when they have understood the concept/theories delivered by the lecturers in the classroom. Students of different anxiety levels have no significant preferences of having online learning as class preparation before the class and as revision after the class. They enjoyed online learning either as preparation or revision.

4 Conclusion

Technology helps in students’ learning. This project discusses the students’ preferences associated with blended learning, an approach which involves technology in improving teaching and learning. Basically, most research found that blended learning is an effective teaching and learning approach. It is a mixture of online learning and face-to-face learning, which is not 100% online learning or 100% face-to-face learning in the classroom, in which either approach may make the learning uninteresting. Blended learning allows a variety of online and face-to-face activities for students. It diversifies the teaching and learning.

It can be concluded from this project that when blended learning is adopted, most students prefer to use it in Science subjects/courses, both inside the class and outside the classroom, and learn via online with a blended learning method as revision after the class. Therefore, the findings of this project recommend that to teach Science students, it is preferable to adopt blended learning in Sciences subjects than Language subjects. Also, it is suggested that when planning lessons, lecturers should consider more online activities and appropriate online activities to be used inside and outside the classroom. The online activities for after the classroom should be more to the revision activities and materials. However, students of low and medium math anxious students had no significant difference in their preferences. Thus, it is suggested that blended learning could be a suitable learning approach for all students regardless of their math anxiety levels.

Finally, it is hoped that the findings of this project could help researchers to customise the incorporation of blended learning tools in students’ learning as well help educators in planning and adopting blended learning, and benefit students in their learning. Furthermore, the system developers should consider designing and developing more suitable systems/apps for students in learning Language subjects.

Future research will be done on examining the effects of using blended learning to reduce students’ mathematics anxiety levels. A system will be developed and to be used as a technology tool in this future research.