IJME9no3:Layout 1.qxd - Higher Education Academy

Student experiences and views of two different
blended learning models within a part-time
post-graduate programme
Doris Schedlitzki, Pat Young and Pam Moule, University of the West of England
DOI:10.3794/ijme.93.332
Received: June 2010
Revised: January 2011, March 2011
Accepted: March 2011
Abstract
Blended learning is an ambiguous concept that has been criticised for its lack of conceptual clarity and pedagogic
purpose (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). However, higher education institutions around the globe are increasingly embracing
forms of blended learning (Orton-Johnson, 2008). Initial research into blended learning has been generally positive
(Arbaugh, 2008) but has not always been substantiated by evaluations of the students’ experiences (Orton-Johnson, 2008;
2009). This article evaluates two different blended learning models on modules within a part-time postgraduate
programme. These reflect the popular use of blended learning modes at postgraduate level (Paton & McCarthy, 2008), as
well as the open-ended nature of blended modes of teaching, and the extent to which the final format is an outcome of
tutor skills and preferences (Moule, Ward, & Lockyer, 2010) rather than pedagogic reasoning. Evaluation of these two
blended learning models involved quantitative and qualitative data to explore the experiences and views of 20 mature
postgraduate students on such forms of blended learning, offering timely reflection on blended learning models that are
practically rather than pedagogically driven, and therefore adds to existing research on student preferences and use or
non-use of online tools in blended learning models.
Keywords: online learning technologies; blended learning; postgraduate student perceptions
Introduction
Blended learning is an ambiguous concept that can take a multitude of forms and has subsequently been
criticised for its lack of conceptual clarity and pedagogic purpose (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). However, higher
education institutions around the globe are increasingly embracing forms of blended learning which often
focus on the blending of face-to-face delivery with the use of online technology (Picciano, 2007; Orton-
Johnson, 2008). Large-scale reviews and investigations of the use of blended learning within wider
undergraduate experiences have been conducted (e.g., Sharpe, Benfield, Roberts, & Francis, 2006) and initial
research into blended learning, and especially the use of virtual learning environments (VLEs), has been quite
positive (Morris & Rippin, 2003; Arbaugh, 2008). However, previous research has rarely included evaluations
of the students’ experiences (Orton-Johnson, 2008, 2009), particularly on part-time postgraduate
programmes, and has therefore been criticised for lack of critical evaluation of the purpose and usefulness of
blended learning models for students’ learning experiences (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005).
This article aims to contribute to the existing literature on student perceptions at postgraduate level and
non-use of online tools (Orton-Johnson, 2008, 2009) through an exploration of the experiences and
perceptions of a small cohort of part-time students, employed in health and social care, studying a
programme in leadership and management education with two blended learning models that involve different
ways of supporting classroom teaching. These models were evaluated using student participation rates and
qualitative interview data, focusing specifically on the use and non-use of different aspects of the online
tools as well as student perceptions of their usefulness.
Dr Doris Schedlitzki is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Bristol Business School, University of the
West of England, Bristol. Doris has published on the topics of leadership, language and identity in Journals
such as Leadership, Leadership and Organization Development Journal and the Scandinavian Journal of
Management.
Dr Pat Young is Senior Lecturer in Educational Research in Health and Social Care in the Faculty of Health
and Life Sciences at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has published textbooks on social
policy and led research projects on a number of aspects of teaching and learning in further and higher
education including recognition and reward for teaching, student retention, partnership learning and
blended learning.
Dr Pam Moule is Reader in Nursing and Learning Technologies and Director of the Centre for Clinical and
Health Services Research at the University of the West of England, Bristol. Pam has led a number of research
and development projects in e-learning, service evaluation and resuscitation. She has published widely in
the field of e-learning, including a textbook in E-learning and Nursing.
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011
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The postgraduate context and management education
According to Taylor’s (2002) review of changes and trends in the HEIs, postgraduate teaching has seen the
biggest changes over the last 10 years. Student numbers have steadily increased, institutions have expanded
their postgraduate offering and the international competition at postgraduate level become fiercer due to
rapid developments in the application of information technology. These changes have had a great impact on
class sizes and mode of delivery within postgraduate teaching, an environment increasingly driven by cost
and income measures (Taylor, 2002). These delivery pressures have led to the development of blended modes
of learning and the wider use of VLEs has become a popular means to improve costs, quality and accessibility
(Paton & McCarty, 2008). In light of these developments, Warren (2010) critically reflected on the readiness
of HEIs to switch to the use of online tools without necessarily ensuring careful design and delivery of part or
fully online courses that meet the learners’ needs and constitute effective alternatives to face-to-face
delivery.
Despite its significant contemporary role within HEIs, the postgraduate teaching context still remains a
comparatively under-explored research area within the wider pedagogy literature. Orton-Johnson (2009,
2008) identified, especially at postgraduate level, a general paucity of research on student preferences for
and experiences with blended learning modes and studies exploring the extent to which their needs as
learners are met. Given the dearth of literature it is important to develop empirical research that explores
the nature of postgraduate teaching and the different needs of learner groups within this context.
Despite the relative lack of formal research attention that the subject of blended learning has received
within the management education area (e.g., the low proportion of management and business studies
programmes in CAMEL e-learning project by Ferrell, Kelly, MacMahon, Probert, Quentin-Baxter, & Riachi,
2007), there is some evidence to suggest that the use of e-learning and VLEs is an appropriate approach to
teaching and learning in this area (Palloff & Pratt, 1999; Brower, 2003; Taylor & Furnham, 2005; Allan, 2007),
where students are often also practising managers and have to juggle work and study time. Online tools
enable such students to not only use time better but also improve communication skills for future work in
virtual teams and to acknowledge different time visions (Allan, 2007).
The two blended learning models
The blended learning models scrutinised here fell within this area of management education and were based
on two block-delivered modules on a part-time postgraduate programme. The typical student cohort on this
programme had lower or middle level managerial experience and was aged between 28 and 45. Students
worked full-time in the health and social care sectors and travelled, at times, up to 20 miles to campus
where all the modules were delivered. Consultations with their employers revealed that employers were keen
to explore more blended models of delivery to help students balance their of professional and student work
load. It is to this end that the module leaders were able to experiment with different types of blended
learning models.
The two blended learning models outlined below reflect the specific needs and purposes of different
modules. They addressed different functions of Blackboard and other online learning tools, and ranged in
their nature from interactive to information sharing. As is common in higher education, where developments
in online learning are often championed by enthusiasts (Moule, Ward, & Lockyer, 2011), the use of blended
learning on the two modules and the encouragement of student use of the online tools was also a reflection
of the interests and skills of the tutors leading the modules.
Leading and Managing People (LMP): An interactive site
This module aimed to develop the students’ interpersonal and leadership skills through an experiential
approach in the classroom, supported through online activities. The Blackboard site had three main
functions: back-up of all module related documents and links to articles/websites relevant to the module;
communication through the discussion forum on a structured discussion activity; and interactive tools.
The information sharing aspect of the site was enhanced through the use of web-friendly document versions
and print-friendly versions (i.e., use of WIMBA and PointCast). Communication was encouraged through a
structured discussion activity that took place between Day 1 and Day 2 of the module on group discussion
board sites and the main module discussion site. Its purpose was to help students sift through the vast range
of leadership literature early on in the module and share summaries of specific articles they had read.
Interactive tools took the form of quizzes (testing theory related knowledge), videos on interviews with
leaders/academics to stimulate discussion and reflection, and self-assessment questionnaires to feed into
further reflection and leadership development. These interactive tools were especially aligned with the
second part of the module assignment, a critical reflective summary on the students’ learning on and through
the module. The assessment preparation phase was further supported through a wiki outside Blackboard: a
website that was co-owned by students and staff where, initially, staff uploaded further explanation of the
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International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011

assessment brief and criteria and subsequently students were able to create their own pages and blogs on
topics, discussions and upload relevant materials.
Human Resource Management (HRM): An information sharing site
After careful consideration, it was decided that a Blackboard site would enhance the classroom focus of this
module as an information sharing site. To this end, the site was configured to be user friendly, easy to
navigate and as complete as possible with module documents, materials and relevant links to articles and
websites. This also included extensive use of WIMBA and PointCast to allow for web-friendly and print-friendly
versions of all materials.
Blended learning: A critical review
Blended learning can take various forms. As a way of mixing different teaching tools, modes of delivery or
pedagogies, it has been argued to meet a greater variety of learner needs, engage learners more
meaningfully and treat them as independent learners who construct their own knowledge through active
selection of information (Burridge & Öztel, 2008). Sharpe et al.’s (2006) extensive review of literature and
practice of blended learning within the United Kingdom (UK) outlined several categories of blended learning
and the two models described fall into the categories of blended technology (i.e., Blackboard and wiki),
blended delivery (i.e., class-room and discussion activity online) and blended direction (i.e., tutor-led and
autonomous learning). The LMP model falls into all three categories whereas the HRM model falls largely into
the third category. Both models do, however, use the online component as a rather supplementary resource
to the face-to-face interaction and hence the learning outcomes. Oliver and Trigwell (2005) critically
examined the usefulness of this approach to blended learning as a means to providing a “compromise position
that avoids the excess of either a purely online or purely face-to-face model” (p. 21) and in the case of these
two blended learning models represents tutors’ personal preferences and interpretations of the module and
students’ needs rather than grounded pedagogic reasoning.
VLEs such as Blackboard, used on the two modules discussed here, can further be described as online domains
that enable synchronous and asynchronous collaborative interaction between teachers, students and learning
resources (Morris & Rippin, 2003). Information technologies and VLEs have received a lot of attention over
the last few years with a view to their potential to “solve many of the problems associated with societal
pressures and concurrent changes in the Higher Education sector” (Franklin & Peat, 2001, p. 38). They are
used widely, a recent survey demonstrating use in 97% of HEI respondents (Moule et al., 2011).
E-learning has been shown to be an effective platform for learning for mature adults studying business
thinking (Stoltz-Loike, Morrell, & Loike, 2005) and a recent survey on the use of e-learning in the social
sciences suggested respondents perceived there were benefits for learning (Marsh, Pountney, & Prigg, 2008).
Bates (2001) commented on the benefits of using e-learning for those who have full time jobs and hectic
social and personal lives. Many health and social care professionals fit into this category and will be looking
to technology to provide access to necessary education, training materials and opportunities. The flexibility
and convenience of anytime anywhere delivery is often seen as helpful to learners trying to balance learning
alongside employment and home demands (Atack, 2003). E-learning also offers scope for students to take
more control over the pace and degree of learning (Steele, Johnson Palensky, Lynch, Lacy, & Duffy, 2002) and
provides opportunities for those engaging with it to develop their computing skills (Geibert, 2000). Several
studies (e.g., Boyle, Bradley, Chalk, Jones, & Pickard, 2003; Nachmias & Segev, 2003; Codone, 2004;
Dickinson, 2005; Hibberd, Litton, & Chambers, 2005) have shown that students regularly use and ask for
supplementary online resources. Meredith and Newton (2003) further drew a link between e-learning
occurring in VLEs and peer learning, as both are associated with flexible design and a conversational
framework that constructs learning through interaction and fosters independent, empowered learning; a link
empirically supported by Franklin and Peat (2001), Kickul and Kickul (2004), Garrison (2006) and Keppell, Au,
Ma, and Chan (2006).
Morris and Rippin’s (2003) work showed that despite the commonly held assumptions that VLEs are important
and useful, their actual use, endorsement and embedding in curriculum design varied extensively between
and within institutions (Fry & Love, 2007) and was often technologically rather than educationally driven
(Moule et al., 2011). This resulted from a seemingly uncritical adoption of technology to support pedagogy,
without evaluation of its ability to meet learner need (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). Such criticisms have been
levelled at technologies such as widely employed VLEs and managed learning environments (MLEs), which are
said to favour content creation rather than supporting learner diversity and pedagogic creation (Britain &
Liber, 2004). Compared to the general variety of Web 2.0 applications, the VLE provides a toolkit that often
constrains educationalists’ ability to develop and implement teaching and learning strategies, and equally
limits the learner. Educators can fail to employ all of the pedagogic options available for e-learners. For
example, it is suggested that despite an increasing emphasis on active learning, e-learning systems are
predominately used to provide digital information access and dissemination (Crook & Barrowcliff, 2001),
including the provision of lecture notes, reading lists, journal articles and images (Levy, 2005).
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011 39

There is a view that e-learning continues to develop and should be combined with more traditional forms of
learning if the needs of the learner are to be met more effectively (Sloman, 2004). Richardson (2008) added a
variety of other factors influencing a student’s learning through VLEs such as having had a positive or
negative experience of online group work, whether the online activities are linked towards assessment,
whether students hold a constructive approach to teaching and learning in higher education, and what their
experience is with information and communication technologies.
While educators may fail to fully use e-learning tools it should also be acknowledged that some learners
remain reluctant to engage with new modes of learning, preferring the traditional face-to-face delivery
(Kamin, Glicken, Hall, Quarantillo, & Merenstein, 2001). Indeed, the cultural and wider changes required
when adopting new learning approaches should not be underestimated and many issues still remain for its
adoption within social care education. Allan’s (2007) research into virtual learning communities showed that
students often turned to telephone conversations and face-to-face meetings to facilitate collaborative group
work. Orton-Johnson’s (2008) qualitative study of postgraduate students further demonstrated that the
students benefitted from external access to online materials as it allowed them to manage space and timing
of academic work more flexibly and weave it more easily into their general working day. However, her study
also showed that the postgraduate students predominantly used the online facility to download, copy and
print off documents rather than interact actively online. The students’ sense of “doing work” hence consisted
of “accessing resources from the website and then personalising these resources in the process of meeting
coursework requirements” (Orton-Johnson, 2008, p. 165).
Orton-Johnson (2009) also explored the phenomenon of non-use or instrumental use of blended learning
environments at undergraduate level. The online tools of this blended delivery had been carefully designed to
link face-to-face lectures and tutorials, as well as tutorial group discussions. Orton-Johnson (2009) reported
an overwhelming pattern of non-use of the online tools and suggested that the reasons behind this non-use
were not only access and social exclusion issues but, more widely, issues of trust, authenticity and
expectations. Her data suggested that the undergraduate students viewed reading lists as a more reliable and
academic source of information and perceived that it was expected from them, as students, to focus on more
academic sources than the internet. Such student perceptions also seem to reflect a still widely shared
culture of non-engagement of staff with VLEs and other Web 2.0 applications (Fry & Love, 2007). Those
students who engaged with the online tools in Orton-Johnson’s (2009) study had a very instrumental approach
to it and thought of non-assessment online work as simply an additional layer of work and not intrinsically
motivating.
The different blended learning models presented as part of this study certainly have the potential to offer
several of the above stated benefits. They can act as communication, file sharing and transfer tools offering
students easy and quick access to the course and university resources when off-campus. This could be
especially useful for part-time students living further away from campus and studying either predominantly in
the evenings or at weekends. The LMP model further offers a range of activities which empowered students
to interact with materials actively and construct a deeper understanding of the subject when and where it
suits them (Weyers, Adamson, & Murie, 2004; Catley, 2005). The online discussion activity is further a means
of creating an environment that enables student-led peer learning, leading to a socially constructed
understanding of articles. Equally, there are similar possible problems with the blended learning models
reflecting the tutor preference driven nature of VLEs and blended learning overall, rather than being truly
designed to meet the learners’ needs. Possibilities for non-use or instrumental use due to lack of free time of
part-time students, the non-assessed nature of online tools, and possible problems of access and fear of
technology of some students in this mature cohort may also prevail.
Through the following analysis of student engagement with and perceptions on these two blended learning
models, the aim was to add to Orton-Johnson’s (2008, 2009) work on postgraduate students’ use of and
perceptions on blended learning by focusing further on the phenomenon of non-use and instrumental use of
these online tools, and possible reasons for such behaviours and choices in a small, mature, part-time,
postgraduate cohort.
Evaluation methodology
Two sources of data were drawn on to evaluate the use of blended learning on the two modules. The first was
participation rate data from the online materials, which was used to analyse frequency of usage of online
facilities and nature of engagement through online communication tools. Through this first source of data,
student access to and engagement with different elements of the online materials available was observed
and monitored. This covered the whole student group of 20 students and involved sub-analyses of the main
Blackboard site course statistics, observation of frequency, nature and quality of discussion activity and, in
the case of LMP, analysis of the quiz statistics and wiki participation.
Recognising the limited quantitative nature of the data, and subsequent need to complement the
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International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011

participation rate data, the second source of information was qualitative interview data, which allowed for
further exploration of trends and themes derived from the quantitative data through qualitative analyses of
student views on the modules and their blended learning models. The interview data stemmed from an
evaluation of the overall postgraduate programme and was funded by the Children’s Workforce Development
Council and Skills for Care. This additional funding was won in order to develop and evaluate the provision of
education on leadership and management for staff working in children's and adults' social care services. The
data used here was drawn from interviews with those students on the programme who were working in social
care sectors. The interviews explored student perceptions on and experiences with blended learning, as well
as wider issues regarding the impact of the programme on practice at work.
The interview questions were developed in consultation with a steering group set up to oversee the project.
The interviews were conducted either face-to-face or by telephone. A sub-group of 11 students out of the 20
student cohort were interviewed (i.e., total number of students from the social care sector) and the
interviews were thematically analysed. While recognising the limitations of this small dataset and the
methods employed, the data should nevertheless provide valuable insight into the students’ experiences of
blended learning in this context and within this sample.
Findings
Student engagement with online learning: Frequency, location and timing
Blackboard tracks all activities of students, tutors and administrators accessing different contents and tools
of the site. The summary statistics on a Blackboard site give the cumulative total of hits of a specific content
area or tool up to that moment in time. In order to observe and monitor access to and engagement with the
main three functions (content areas, groups, discussion board) of the two Blackboard sites under
investigation, the Blackboard statistics were accessed at the end of the two modules. Table 1 shows the key
statistics regarding the frequency of usage by the 20 students on this cohort across the two module
Blackboard sites.
Content area Groups Discussion board Other areas
Hits % Hits % Hits % Hits %
LMP 1209 26 1344 29 1068 23 1023 22
HRM 277 51 8 1 6 1 261 48
Table 1: Usage of key Blackboard functions
Both Blackboard sites were populated prior to the start of the module and these statistics reflect student
engagement with the sites in the time between the start of the face-to-face module sessions and the
assignment hand-in date. The participation rate data demonstrates there was frequent student engagement
with both Blackboard sites. Only five of the 20 students did not access a Blackboard site at all. At least 80% of
the hits across the Blackboard sites represent student activity rather than tutor or administrator activity. The
percentages reflect the relative importance of each specific Blackboard function as it shows the proportion of
the users’ focus of activity on the Blackboard site. Hence, on the LMP site, users used the main three
Blackboard functions almost equally often whereas the HRM site was predominantly used to access the
content area. The total number of hits for each function also shows that the LMP site was accessed far more
often by this cohort of students than the HRM site. This finding is not entirely surprising in light of the
different attitudes of module leaders towards the use of Blackboard and specifically the active
encouragement provided by the LMP module leader as described earlier.
Student engagement with online learning: Interview responses
The interviews with the students included questions relating to each module, which asked them to describe
their access to the online materials in terms of location, timing and frequency. The responses added depth to
the statistical data, providing insight into the students’ perceptions of their experience. Students accessed
materials from both home and work but the bulk of access was from home. The workplace was generally felt
to be too busy with too many distractions and involvement was therefore limited to printing off articles to
read at home or for email.
I do it at work sometimes, but I mainly do it at home. I don’t get enough sort of space to do that sort
of thing at work. I download some things now and again at work because it’s easier to print them.
Most students seemed to have adequate access at home, although one said it was more difficult for her with
children at home:
I know some of my colleagues are more fortunate in that they can you know spend the whole evening
on the computer but I have got to try and ask my daughter to get off before I can get on.
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011 41

The majority of participants preferred to access materials when they had a whole day or longer to commit to
study. They used study days to work at home with online access and many used weekends as well. One
described combining weekends and “banking up” study days to have five days off for concentrated study
time. Others accessed the online material more frequently for shorter periods a couple of times a week and
one described how she combined these patterns in a love affair with her study:
Now and again I go through phases of being really in love with it all and do it for an hour or so every
night . . . but I do find when it’s approaching essay time just taking two days off work and marrying
them up with weekends really getting into it, it’s just lovely.
Student engagement with online learning: Purpose
The participation rate data shown in Table 1 suggests that usage of the HRM site was closest to its actual
purpose (i.e., document management and information sharing) as the content area attracted 51% of all
student activity. However, the LMP website was more frequently visited by students. Overall, students
engaged equally well with the content areas and discussion board on the LMP site whilst the group area
through the structured discussion activity attracted the largest amount of interaction (29%). Looking at the
different aspects of the content area on the LMP site, 67% of all interaction was with the module documents
and other module materials. Only 28% of all student activity within the content area was with the activities
section (quizzes, links to interviews, self-assessment questionnaires). Indeed only six of the students took any
of the quizzes on offer.
The discussion activity on LMP that took place between Day 1 and Day 2 on the group discussion sites was
indeed the most successful in terms of number of student engagements with each other. Students interacted
in small groups within their own respective group page to encourage honest discussion without the feeling of
being watched by the course tutors or the larger group. Only the final output of the activity, a critical
summary of an article, was published on an open discussion forum and hence available to the whole cohort
and tutor team. Despite the privacy of the group pages and the clear structure of the activity, much of the
interaction was still mainly individualistic posting of messages and dialogues between students were rare
through this medium. It is possible that the layout of the Blackboard discussion site itself was not conducive
to a flowing dialogue. It was to this end that the Assessment wiki was set up on LMP: to aid revision and
assessment preparation through a medium that enabled all posts and responses to be visible on one page to
mimic the space of a chat room, while also allowing students to upload documents and design their own
information pages. Unfortunately, only five of the students posted something on the wiki. Others visited it
but did not contribute. No “ownership taking” of information sites was hence visible and the low number of
individual comment postings by students reflects the lack of dialogue that took place on this wiki.
In the interviews, students were asked to express their views of the various materials provided on Blackboard
in the two modules. Respondents found it “handy having all the information in one place” (LMP) and
appreciated the ease of dipping in and out of the resources.
Blackboard’s lovely, and it’s such a comfort too, you can keep going in and out and looking and
remembering where you’ve been and you know, I prefer electronic stuff to paper these days because I
lose paper and I scribble on it. (LMP)
The comprehensiveness of the materials was welcomed and several people mentioned their appreciation of
the scanning-in of flip charts from classroom discussion groups. The discussion boards were the least popular
aspects of the online materials. No-one interviewed said they had posted an entry, and only one person said it
was useful to see the entries that were posted. Some referred to problems with access, lack of confidence
about online learning or found the threads “anti-logical” and disjointed.
We had a task, which we were sent in Discussion Groups, to look at a piece of work and then work
online between one another in a small group four or five people, and we were meant to then come up
with a consolidated “take” on the article between the four or five of us and that kind of proved very
difficult, because a number of people were saying, well the computer I’ve got has got to be shared
between all members of the family, so there wasn’t any consistency of contact and all of a sudden
people would come up and then things wouldn’t . . . I don’t know, it all got a bit confusing I think.
(LMP)
The most common reason for non-use however was a preference for other forms of communication such as
email or face-to-face meetings:
I think what people tend to have done is swopped e-mail addresses and people just communicate sort
of outside, or we have face-to-face discussions . . . hardly anyone seemed to post on it anyway from
our course. (LMP)
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International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011

The majority of students had accessed the self-assessment exercises and quizzes on LMP. They were evenly
split into those who found them useful and those who gave more equivocal answers. Reasons for liking the
exercises including being able to use the material in the assignments, finding the self assessment thought
provoking and the quizzes fun and revealing. The exercises were useful in feeding into the assignment. Those
who had not accessed the exercises and quizzes suggested that working full–time meant they had to gear all
their activity to the assignments and that the exercises were not felt to be directly related.
No-one seemed to actively dislike the activities but some were luke-warm and reported not getting a great
deal from them. In the quotation below a participant contrasts the experience of doing the quiz online with a
more positive response to working on an exercise in the class:
. . . they were sort of okay, and I wouldn’t have got really excited about them to be honest, but they
were okay. There was one we did in one of the modules and that was really useful because we did it
as a group and there was feedback and discussion and it was sort of interesting and there was quite a
lot of depth with it. But the ones that were available online, they seemed much more simplistic
really. And I guess it’s difficult to do much more, so I didn’t feel I got a lot back from them really.
(LMP)
Only one person had accessed a video online.
Student engagement with online learning: Challenges and benefits
Some of the students interviewed were initially nervous and found online learning “new and scary”. A number
said they were new to online learning (OLL), and learned from experience and improved. Problems were
encountered, but in most cases these were resolved or worked around, and did not take away value of having
OLL, which was in general very much appreciated:
The e-learning, it’s something quite new to me, I’m learning a whole host of skills, not just the
fundamental learning of new information, but learning skills.
Those with experience valued the opportunity to extend their skills:
I’m not frightened of using a PC at all, I use it, you know all day long really for my job, but it’s still
opened up other avenues having to go onto the UWE website and look in the library and the
e-learning stuff.
A number of participants reported initial problems with access. These mainly concerned the password
required to access library articles from outside the university. Although frustrating at the time, in most cases
these problems were ironed out fairly quickly and when students sought support from the university
administrative or library staff they found them helpful and able to solve problems.
I think at the very beginning Athens (the password system required for accessing online materials
off-campus) defeated me and I think it defeated a lot of us really, but once we kind of mastered it, it
was fine.
It is clear from the interviews that, in most cases, people were able to work around any problems
encountered and find solutions to suit their own circumstances. There were frequent references to
reassurance gained from emails from others in the group also experiencing problems. Once student referred
to “a little bit of confusion” she experienced when trying to access some information earlier that day “but
looking at the e-mails from some of my colleagues on the course they’ve experienced it as well, so I’m not
too worried about it”.
Two participants reported more challenging problems. In one case this was related to the student’s role as a
social worker working in a National Health Service (NHS) trust meaning she had to work through
organisational firewalls. This participant resorted to a number of strategies: having colleagues email material
to her and opting for “the old fashioned way” by getting books out of the university libraries.
In the second situation where the problems were difficult to resolve, the participant’s computer at home was
broken, forcing her to go into work on her day off. This was not satisfactory and neither was an attempt to
work in the university. She spent “quite a lot of money to get an engineer in” but the computer broke down
again.
Although the majority of students were able to resolve or work around difficulties and retain an enthusiasm
for online learning, a few were put off. In the quote below, the participant became frustrated and suggests
all materials should also be available in the library as a hard copy.
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011 43

. . . it’s getting to know your way around it, and I think the first few times if you don’t get in, and
the system keeps kicking you out, I’m not the most patient of people and I ended up thinking right,
you know. I’d rather they gave me hand-outs of whatever they put on.
Despite a high level of commitment to attendance, many students had to miss a session. The material placed
on Blackboard meant they felt confident they were not missing out, even on discussion work:
It was almost like you’re at college. Although you’re looking at a screen, because you’ve got all the
information there, you’ve got access to the resources and you can feel like you’re actually at college.
(LMP)
In the second module, people appreciated the availability of an e-book which avoided the difficulties of
recommended books not being available from the library.
It was really very difficult to access the books from the library because I didn’t have enough time . . .
they were either out for the whole period of the module, or you could have them for a week and of
course, if you were kind of doing full time work and trying to read stuff, a week isn’t particularly
long, but some of them was just 24 hours . . . it was good to have in the second module, a whole kind
of book ‘on line’ that you could actually read at your leisure rather than trying to rush around trying
to find the new book. (HRM)
Student preferences
The students interviewed were aware of the different patterns of use of online learning in the two modules. A
few of them expressed a preference for one or the other of the models, but the majority were undecided. A
student expressed appreciation for the materials provided in the LMP module:
I do like being able to go onto the internet and click on something, and maybe if I’m not going to
read it then, I’ll download it or save it somewhere . . . I think it was quite a good balance. As I said
(the tutor) did actually use her Blackboard site to its fullness really and everything was there and
available. She said herself, she was a great advocate for that. (LMP)
One student explained her regret that there was less online provision in the second module:
I think I prefer online . . . I like being able to go on and look at a podcast . . . and rather than reading
a chapter, you read something on line and then you go back and read somebody else’s opinion, so sort
of short and snappy isn’t it I suppose? I find it quite hard if you have got a book to read. You have got
to keep writing notes, whereas on line I just cut and paste it on to another document so that I can go
back and read the bits that are relevant to me. (HRM)
Another student was happier with the more limited use of online materials:
There was much less about the “online” but you had access to the journals and things that were
there; they were digestible sizes; it was articles within journals and I just felt they were possibly
much more geared to the mature student by sort of suggesting where the “bite sizes” were that
would be relevant. I just felt they were much more in key of where we were as well.’ (HRM)
For the minority of students who experienced problems with access there was too much expectation of online
working on the LMP module.
Two of the interviewees expressed a sense of anxiety in the group about returning to academic study after a
long time out of education and would have liked more mentoring for the first assignment and opportunities to
build relations with fellow students in order to seek help from them.
Although all the students acknowledged there was less online provision in the HRM module, few were
prepared to say unequivocally that they would have liked more. The following exchange in one of the
interviews illustrates this.
The student began:
Well I think I found the information . . . was difficult to track . . . and you have to really hunt for it
and yes there would be sections about the recruitment process and the theories that underpin that
which you would find quite easily, but all the other information actually was a lot more scattered, so
I would say the balance, well the balance shifted. I actually felt I was a little bit on my own on that
one . . . There wasn’t so much back-up from the Blackboard.
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International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011

The interviewer responded by asking if the student would have liked more and the student initially said “well
yes, I think so”, but then quickly went on to say:
You know on reflection I don’t know how much more material could have been put on there. I think
that’s what I’m trying to say.
Another interviewee, also reflecting on the balance of OLL in the two modules said:
[The balance on the HRM module] was fine, we were given a very good source book to use that was
also an e-book . . . perhaps [the LMP tutor] was spoiling us, but it was so nice just to go on and see
relevant articles and things, whereas with HRM, we had to search around a bit more, but you know,
but hey, at that point in the course at least we’re better at searching around a bit more than we
were on the first module.
Although students expressed appreciation of the organisation and comprehensiveness of the OLL material in
the LMP module, they seemed reluctant to criticise the HRM module outright. Here a student began by saying
it would have been nice to have more materials more easily accessible online but concluded that was fine:
I mean it may have been useful to have in the way that there was for the first module, you know,
certain journal articles that you could access straight from the Blackboard to save sort of hunting
around for them, but no I mean it was fine, you know, and as I say, it was useful having the reading
lists there definitely.
Although all noted there was less online material in the HRM module, generally this was accepted as
appropriate to the module and to the style of the different lecturers.
Discussion
Recognising the limitations of the small interview data set, and the static and limited nature of the
participation rate data, the insights gained from the above findings section are not generalisable beyond this
study and need to be followed up by future robust studies. Nevertheless, our findings can be compared with
the wider literature to draw out key lessons for such future research.
Although the students were aware of the different uses of OLL in the two modules, they were reluctant to
express a preference for one or the other, and related the differences to the individual teaching styles of the
tutors, the different points in their development as students and the different curricula. This may indicate
that the different teaching styles were appropriate to the different modules or that students welcomed
variety in teaching styles (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005). However, acceptance of the two models of blended
learning and reluctance to express stronger preferences for one or the other model may also reflect students’
overall support for the modules and the tutors. This is especially interesting in light of existing scholarly
criticism of the popular use of blended learning at postgraduate level without a strong pedagogic rationale or
strategy (Paton & McCarty, 2008; Warren, 2010).
The interviews evaluated student experiences more generally than has been reported here and found the
students to be very positive about the two modules and appreciative of their tutors. The content was found
to be highly relevant to current issues in managing social care services, providing a means of improving
processes and practice at work, and the high quality of the teaching and the variety of learning experiences
were appreciated by students. One interpretation of this could be that students’ positive experience of these
two modules was more dependent on content and social interaction with tutors than the nature of specific
teaching tools employed, a scholarly and human element that is not always recognised in writings and
research on blended learning.
The data supports work by Boyle et al. (2003), Dickinson (2005), Hibberd et al. (2005), Nachmias and Segev
(2003) and Orton-Johnson (2008) in finding that most students appreciate the provision of supplementary
online materials as a comprehensive resource which can be accessed from a single point. The participation
rate data demonstrated frequent student engagement with the online materials provided for each module
and the interview data found the majority of the students were positive about the blended learning approach
which provided a mix of learning opportunities. Students appreciated being able to access online materials
from home and work, an area that had also been highlighted as desirable for mature, postgraduate students
by Allan (2007) and Orton-Jonson (2008).
Similar to Orton-Johnson’s (2008) study on postgraduate students, although students in the study were open
to the range of online technologies offered, they did not take up all opportunities to engage and this was only
marginally due to access problems or technology fear. The most popular space for online work was the
student’s home, and some of the reported problems with the Blackboard sites were actually problems of
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011 45

password access to Athens from off campus. However, the interview data suggests that, in most cases, any
problems encountered were minor and quickly resolved or that students found a way to work around a
barrier, hence minimising access problems and disengagement with technology.
In addition to existing research into postgraduate students, the data showed that a far more significant
problem that led to disengagement with online materials was the pressure of full-time work, combined with
study and in many cases home responsibilities that did not allow for enough time to use all that was on offer.
This was reflected in a decrease in interest in the individual module site as time progressed. The
participation rate data shows more online engagement during the teaching days and in the month after the
teaching. The data further allowed exploration of the nature and frequency of interactive communication
online, and again complements previous studies and our understanding of how these 20 mature postgraduate
students engaged with the online technologies.
As was found to be the case on other courses within the University (for example Young et al., 2010), the
discussion boards and groups were generally less popular than the provision of resource materials. Interaction
with the group discussion sites only occurred on LMP when it was tutor-led and structured. The discussion
activity on LMP was successful in terms of high frequency of student posts but cannot generally be described
as interaction or dialogue between students. Individualistic posting of messages remained dominant and
dialogue between students were rare through this medium. One could argue that this was due to the rigid
structure of the Blackboard discussion site itself that is not conducive to a flowing dialogue. However, further
interactive tools provided on Blackboard and the wiki used on LMP received only low to medium interest as
well.
These findings of voluntary disengagement with online materials and especially interactive tools are similar
to Smart and Holyfield’s (2004) survey results of students’ VLE use and Orton-Johnson’s (2009) reflections on
non-use or strategic use of online tools by undergraduate students. Smart and Holyfield (2004) found
equivalent preferences amongst students to access course notes rather than engage in the interactive online
tools such as quizzes and discussion boards. This indicates an active interpretation by students of the purpose
of VLEs as document management tools rather than interactive communications tools (Orton-Johnson, 2008;
Moule et al., 2011) and fundamentally contradicts the educational rationale of empowering students through
interactive online tools.
It may further indicate a preference for face-to-face interaction or a disincentive to interact online, which
for the part-time students in this study was often due to competing work and family commitments hindering
a long engagement with materials outside the classroom. Clouder and Deepwell (2004), Kear (2004) and
Keppell et al. (2006) highlighted evidence supporting the above finding that students only engage in true
dialogue and online collaboration when this interaction is carefully structured and timed. This would then
further suggest that unless face-to-face time is actually replaced with structured online activities, we may
not be successful in seeking high levels of online engagement. Given students’ time constraints, especially on
part-time programmes, this would imply shifting the focus away from traditional class-room interaction
towards a distance learning mode. Interestingly, students’ feedback within this study supports Kamin et al.’s
(2001) findings that traditional face-to-face delivery, and with it space for personal reflection and group
interaction, is seen as an important part of their study and key to effective learning. To ensure success of a
further shift towards distance learning would hence require a transformation at course level to promote a
change in student attitudes towards online learning, and provision of online activities that mimic the face-toface
reflective and interactive space students seem to value. However, it is questionable whether this is
possible within the constraints of VLE toolkits (Sloman, 2004) such as Blackboard. In light of health and social
care students’ conflicting work commitments found in this study, it would also require an active control of
student time dedicated to study, away from the workplace, for students to be able to focus on their study.
Yet, what remains unexplored is how students can create the right space for such distance study as work and
home present spaces that compete with student time rather than enable a flexible mixing and use of time as
suggested by Orton-Johnson’s (2008) study.
Conclusion
To conclude, this study set out to use student participation rate and interview data in order to understand
better the viability and usefulness of blended learning in the teaching of two different part-time
postgraduate modules, to re-examine the positive views on blended learning present in the educational
literature (Morris & Rippin, 2003; Arbaugh, 2008) and add to the so far limited empirical research into
postgraduate student views on blended learning (Orton-Johnson, 2008). Acknowledging the limitations of this
study and the subsequent lack of generalisability beyond this specific data set, it is nevertheless worthwhile
noting that the findings support some of the more critical views present in the wider pedagogic literature,
suggesting that the part-time status of these 20 management students may not always translate into student
preference for and benefits from online learning modes. Instead, the findings from this study suggest that
face-to-face interaction is a valued element of part-time management study by this cohort and that, unless
46
International Journal of Management Education 9(3), 2011

very structured and facilitated, such group interaction is not easily created online. Competing work and
family pressures as well as technological problems were further found to counteract the benefits of online
technologies from the students’ point of view, suggesting a less optimistic picture than offered by Orton-
Johnson’s (2008) study.
Future robust research is needed to explore students’ attitudes towards OLL further in different settings and
especially explore whether a more transformative course level approach to blended learning may make
postgraduate, and more generally part-time courses within the area of management education, more
accessible, both nationally and internationally. In light of the findings, one key aspect of such an exploration
would be the analysis of student and staff perceptions on the feasibility and validity of online tools that
mimic face-to-face interaction and hence attempt to provide the highly valued time for social interaction and
reflection possible in a classroom. The findings would also suggest further research attention to be paid to
exploring the notion of study space creation and protection in a distance learning mode of a part-time,
postgraduate management programme.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Children's Workforce Development Council and
Skills for Care who funded the project. We are also grateful to the students and staff who gave their time and
support.
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