Has UK higher education moved closer to a blended learning model?
I wonder if you remember the higher education discourse of 2020 and 2021. One aspect of it that sticks in my memory is the almost incessant talk about modalities, whether that be online, blended, hybrid or hyflex. The focus also extended beyond just the range of modalities and included the future trajectory for the primary teaching modality in higher education.
As things unfolded over those years, it felt as though there was a kind of consensus that online education, necessitated by the pandemic, wouldn't become the norm. Instead, blended learning was poised to become the dominant modality in UK higher education.
Reports from sector bodies, such as Universities UK recommended universities “accelerate the adoption of blended learning”. Accompanying articles also indicated that blended learning was now the preferred option for many students and staff.
Defining blended learning precisely, to the extent that one can definitively say a course is delivered via this modality, is a challenge. But I wonder where we are now in terms of blended learning, especially considering how the discourse I’ve described has decidedly died down.
University teaching and the lives of others
One reason my thoughts returned to this topic was the recent release of a quality assessment report by the UK's higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS).
For context, the OfS announced in 2022 its plans to conduct assessments of eight universities and colleges, focusing on the quality of business and management courses.
The recently published reports summarise the assessments of two institutions: the University of Wolverhampton and Buckinghamshire New University. The latter received a more problematic report. In fact it was quite the rap sheet, highlighting five areas of concern, encompassing leadership, inconsistency, quality of teaching, VLE usage, and more.
As a small snapshot of sector practice it was a particularly depressing read. One of the most striking things was the jarring disconnect between the real lives of undergraduate students and the delivery of their degree programme.
The report pointed out that a significant number of students had major work commitments, with some juggling "full-time jobs on top of part-time jobs", and many with caring responsibilities.
Yet the delivery of this degree might be described as vintage. Courses were "centred on in-person delivery in typically three-hour lecture or seminar sessions," requiring “student attendance during standard teaching hours with limited flexibility to support asynchronous learning.”
These findings echo an earlier quality assessment report from late 2023 about undergraduate business and management degrees at the University of Bedfordshire.
There were also a high proportion of students who were employed full-time or had caring and childcare responsibilities. However, there was also real dissonance between that reality and how the course was delivered.
Teaching was exclusively in-person, during working hours, with no mention of any significant asynchronous learning and teaching components. There was limited flexibility and the report noted that “the delivery model emerged as a significant barrier to engagement”. Remarkably, lectures were not recorded for students to review and revisit, as the university has an opt-in policy for lecture recording, and “some staff viewed such practices as pandemic-related”.
Interestingly, in the case of the University of Bedfordshire, a blended learning framework was put in place for 2023. However this framework explicitly stated that teaching must take place face-to-face, and only supporting materials can be provided online. Now I know that there are different views on the defining characteristics of blended learning and how tightly we define it….but in my book, this isn’t blended learning.
Blended learning or as you were?
In the Office for Students' (OfS) 2022 Blended Learning Review, a definition of blended learning was adopted that combines Sir Michael Barber’s definition:
Blended learning is ‘teaching and learning that combines in-person delivery and delivery in a digital environment.’
With D.Randy Garrison and Heather Kanuka’s definition:
Blended learning is ‘the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences.’
However, I think the OfS would do well to consider a definition I most commonly see in the US, which is a derivative of this:
“Blended learning, sometimes known as hybrid learning, is traditionally thought of as a blend of media or technologies allowing for a blend of modalities of learning, face-to-face and online, potentially leading to a reduction in face-to-face seat time in class.”
Taken from Planning for a Blended Future: A Research-Driven Guide for Educators
That last point is a key one to my mind, because I think the potential of a reduction in in-person place-based commitments is an important facet of blended learning.
Although it is pretty old now, a 2013 report from what was then the Babson Survey Research Group presents an interesting definition of modalities and blended learning. While there is a bit of an aversion in the UK to using percentage-based definitions, this clearly seeks to draw a distinction between using online and digital technologies in a course and blended learning.
The University of Bedfordshire’s interpretation seems as though it’s renaming pre-pandemic methods, leaving things open to the same old, same old when it comes to using online and digital technologies in learning and teaching.
In fact, the Buckinghamshire New University report also pointed out issues with the use of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Even with it being used as a pseudo course dropbox “some modules (had) inadequate learning materials to facilitate the cohort of students’ learning.” Students also reported that materials on the VLE didn’t match up with lectures, and in some cases learning materials from previous versions of modules were still present on the VLE.
Although the terms used in the table above seem dated, if I was using these definitions I would be pretty hesitant to classify the predominant UK higher education model as blended learning. On that basis one might then ask, what has really changed?
An increasing need for flexibility
Well, if pre-pandemic calls to move to blended learning might be described as technological optimism, post-pandemic demands are more about meeting the needs of students requiring flexibility.
Business and Management education has such a strong pedigree in online education, there have been online programmes in this area for years and it’s one of the most dominant online learning subject areas. So it is surprising that when faced with a large cohort of students with major work commitments and caring and childcare responsibilities, that some universities aren’t even inching a bit closer to blended learning, or for that matter considering online learning.
Reading the reports, it is easy to empathise with students attending three hour lectures while balancing major commitments. As one noted “The style of teaching is very tiring, and draining” unsurprising as “dense teaching materials were presented in extensive PowerPoint slide decks”.
With students increasingly taking on significant work commitments, universities not yet fully adopting blended learning should reconsider it as a means to reduce place-based and time-based commitments, to better align with many students' realities.
Although several universities have condensed teaching into part of the week to accommodate students, why is it that some just can’t seem to wean themselves off face-to-face teaching even a little bit.
If we continue to see students' needs and demographics change, then the sector and the regulator will need to get to grips with an understanding of blended learning that results in a reduced place and time-based commitment. UK higher education will also need to grapple with, what I would describe, as its asynchronous teaching and learning problem.
The space between synchronous teaching of any type can’t continue to just be filled by sharing documents and PowerPoints. Asynchronous learning and teaching should also offer meaningful opportunities for student-to-student and student-to-educator interaction and activity. Otherwise what we have to offer students will be blended learning in name only.
