A Hierarchy-based Analysis Approach for Blended Learning: A Case Study with Chinese Students

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hierarchy-based analysis approach utilizing gradient boosting to evaluate blended learning quality by analyzing student engagement dimensions, emphasizing the importance of emotional and cognitive engagement.

Contribution

It presents a novel hierarchy-based evaluation framework that improves the assessment of blended learning by focusing on engagement dimensions using advanced machine learning techniques.

Findings

Cognitive and emotional engagement are key factors in blended learning quality.

The approach effectively identifies important engagement factors influencing learning outcomes.

Results suggest targeted improvements in engagement can enhance blended learning effectiveness.

Abstract

Blended learning is generally defined as the combination of traditional face-to-face learning and online learning. This learning mode has been widely used in advanced education across the globe due to the COVID-19 pandemic's social distance restriction as well as the development of technology. Online learning plays an important role in blended learning, and as it requires more student autonomy, the quality of blended learning in advanced education has been a persistent concern. Existing literature offers several elements and frameworks regarding evaluating the quality of blended learning. However, most of them either have different favours for evaluation perspectives or simply offer general guidance for evaluation, reducing the completeness, objectivity and practicalness of related works. In order to carry out a more intuitive and comprehensive evaluation framework, this paper proposes a hierarchy-based analysis approach. Applying gradient boosting model and feature importance evaluation method, this approach mainly analyses student engagement and its three identified dimensions (behavioral engagement, emotional engagement, cognitive engagement) to eliminate some existing stubborn problems when it comes to blended learning evaluation. The results show that cognitive engagement and emotional engagement play a more important role in blended learning evaluation, implying that these two should be considered to improve for better learning as well as teaching quality.