A Case Study of the Effectiveness of a Hybrid course in Engineering Education Michael V. Gangone University of Texas at Tyler Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering mgangone@uttyler.edu Higher education as a whole has been drifting heavily towards offering more courses in an online or hybrid format. Hybrid courses combine face-to-face interaction with a virtual, or online, component. An attractive feature of this learning platform is the flexibility it provides to both students and the instructor. For the student, it allows them the opportunity to learn in an alternate environment to the traditional face-to-face lecture. Furthermore, depending on the hybrid method used, it provides more freedom for students to use the time that would normally be allocated for face-to-face instruction as they need for other things not necessarily related to that course such as working at a job. As a result, students are required to use and develop their time management skills to ensure a successful outcome in the course. Similarly for the instructor, it provides more flexibility on the use of their time. This case study looks at a junior/senior-level course in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at UT Tyler that was taught for two semesters as a fully face-to-face course and one recent semester as a hybrid. Results from student homework, exam scores and final class averages are used to show the effectiveness of this format for this particular class. Based on the data and student feedback from the end of course evaluations the hybrid format did not appear to hinder the students ability, in fact a significant majority preferred this form of teaching to just having a faceto-face only class. As a result, the instructor will keep this format for the next offering and look to make improvements where possible. Introduction Advances in technology has brought alternative methods of delivering course content beyond the traditional face-to-face lecture format. Fully online and hybrid courses are becoming more frequent as to provide a flexible learning/teaching environment to both students and instructors. It has been shown that the traditional face-to-face lecturing approach falls short of achieving the desired level of performance [1-3]. However, online only courses have shown only marginal improvement over traditional face-to-face lecturing methods. A hybrid course, or sometimes termed blended course, is a method of mixing the online and face-to-face teaching styles within one course and has been shown, in some cases, to be more effective [4-5]. Hybrid teaching allows for a style that isn t just one size fits all. Some students are not as engaged sitting through a long lecture and viewing short videos allows them to retain the knowledge more effectively. Others like the ability to watch a video lesson multiple times and do so on a schedule that works best for them. Another benefit to hybrid courses is the ability of the student to have a job as some require concurrent employment to support themselves and their family.
While hybrid courses combine face-to-face and online delivery methods, there is no one set way in which this is carried out. For example, some instructors will substitute a face-to-face lecture for an online lesson. Others utilize a flipped classroom approach where students will view the lesson material online then show up to class to apply the lesson content in the form of problem solving and other classroom activities. This approach was used Ilgu and Jahren [5] for a junior-level construction management course. Students in this course were required to watch the lesson material online then in a face-to-face environment solve open-ended problems and complete their homework assignment. The class response was very positive to this format. Branoff and Wiebe [6] taught a primarily sophomore-level engineering graphics course. A majority of the sections of the course followed the traditional face-to-face format (204 total students) while a three sections were hybrid (65 total students). The hybrid format consisted of students watching voice over PowerPoint and demonstration videos then a once a week face-to-face lecture was provided as an opportunity for students to ask questions and review key concepts from the online content. Results show that the hybrid students did slightly better on the final exam compared to the face-to-face students. A survey was conducted at the end of the course that found, among other things, that students prefer a hybrid class compared to a face-to-face class. He et al. [3] offered a flexible hybrid class for a lower division electrical engineering course. The faculty provided all of the course material online at least one week prior to the actual face-to-face lecture. This gave students the opportunity to choose whether they wanted to attend the face-to-face class, just view the online content or attend the face-to-face class and view the online content. The self-motivation of students showed to be the greatest predictor of exam performance. As expected, the more difficult the course became the more effort that was required of the students resulting in higher exam scores. Some students also had issues with time management and not prioritizing things correctly as a result of not physically going to class. This paper discusses the offering of a required junior/senior-level civil engineering course for the first time in a hybrid format. The course had been taught two other times by the instructor in a face-to-face only platform. The approach used for this hybrid course was to replace a 50 minute face-to-face lecture with an online lecture that contained voiceover PowerPoint and YouTube videos. At the completion of each online lesson the student was required to take a timed quiz administered through Blackboard. Assessment methods such as homework, exam and final course averages are presented for the previous two face-to-face offerings and the one hybrid offering to see if there was a noticeable affect resulting from the new teaching format. Description of the Hybrid Format CENG 3434: Civil Engineering Materials, Codes and Specifications is a required 4 credit hour junior/senior level course that covers topics related to the three areas specified within the course title. In the first part of the course common civil engineering building materials such as aggregate, concrete, steel, masonry, timber, asphalt and plastics are discussed and include material properties, testing methods, uses, and construction practices. In addition, each week students are required to perform hands on laboratory experiments outlined from ASTM standards that emphases material discussed during lectures. The final part of the course introduces students to various aspects of the International Building Code (IBC). During the fall 2012 and fall 2013 semesters the instructor (who is also the author of this paper) taught this course in a traditional face-to-face format.
Lectures were held for 50 minutes Monday, Wednesday and Friday and there was a 3 hour lab on Monday afternoon. It should be noted that these were the first two offerings of the course by the instructor. This class is not a traditional engineering course that students had been previously exposed to. In other words, there were very few equations and engineering mechanics problems worked in lecture that would be common in a course such as mechanics of materials or fluid mechanics. As a result, the instructor felt this course would be a good candidate to convert to a blended or hybrid course. This was undertaken during the fall 2014 semester. Instead of meeting for 3 lectures a week faceto-face the Monday lecture was online. The instructor developed online voiceover PowerPoint videos using Tegrity software for students to watch (Fig. 1). They were also given the lecture slides in.pdf format with areas to take additional notes as they saw fit. In addition, the slideshow file was also made available for those that might have two monitors and wanted to click on the slides along with the video. Everything was uploaded to Blackboard and well organized for student access. Each content item contains the lesson number, the files to download, lesson objectives, reminders and notifications of assigned homework. An example of this is shown in Fig. 2. By having the laboratory session Monday afternoon it allowed students to ask questions at the beginning of lab on the video lecture for Monday. Fig 1: Screenshots of Tegrity video lessons Fig 2: Material provided to students for each online lecture Each online lecture also had a quiz that was administered through Blackboard. Instructions were provided prior to starting. There were between 10 and 15 questions for each online lecture. Students were forced to take the quiz prior to Wednesday s face-to-face lecture. They were given a certain amount of time, typically 15 minutes, to complete the quiz and forced completion was enabled so that they had to finish it in one sitting. Questions were presented one-by-one in a random order as well. An example of one such question is shown in Fig. 3. Multiple format type questions were used for each quiz such as multiple choice, fill in the blank, true/false and essay response. The remaining lectures on Wednesday and Friday followed a traditional face-to-face
format. The instructor primarily would write notes on the board and used PowerPoint for certain lectures or to show pictures on a particular topic. Fig 3: Example quiz question administered for an online lecture Beyond the hybrid lectures the instructor provided the class with voice over PowerPoint videos for each lecture of the course for students to review if they needed. However, students were only provided with the documents, similar to what is shown in Fig. 2, for the actual hybrid lectures. Therefore, if they missed a lecture they were still able to catch up on the material but they would be required to take their own notes. By having this library of lecture videos it also gave students the opportunity to review a lecture at a later date, such as before an exam or review them prior to a face-to-face lecture. Results Homework, exam and final course averages provide a direct assessment for determining the knowledge obtained by students. This information is shown in table 1 for the three different course offerings. The data appears to indicate that students were not negatively affected by the new format. In fact, in most cases the averages were highest and standard deviations lowest for the hybrid section. It is noted that the final exam in the fall 2014 did not increase like the other assessment methods. This could possibly be due to the fact that nearly 36% of the class had 3 final exams in a row which may have some influence on why the average was not higher like for other assessments. Table 1: scores (as percentages) for three offerings of CENG 3434 Fall 2012 (Face-to- Face) Fall 2013 (Face-to- Face) Fall 2014 (Hybrid) Homework Exam 1 77.07 [15.16] 61.90 [13.42] 83.9 [18.79] 74.67 [11.94] 89.96 [8.20] 79.04 [12.12] Exam 2 71.17 [13.25] 68.21 [14.71] 76.63 [11.27] Final Exam 72.98 [10.58] 74.56 [14.43] 74.21 [10.08] Final Class 75.67 [7.13] 81.53 [12.31] 82.05 [7.81]
At the completion of the semester the department requires the faculty to distribute course evaluation forms to the students. At the end of this form students are asked a give a short response to a series of questions. Question D5 was What is your opinion of having the lecture component of this course taught in a hybrid format? Was it effective? Below are sample responses from students: I really enjoyed taking a class like this as a hybrid class. I kept up with the reading and PowerPoints so it did not affect me. I like it because it allowed one course at home and an online quiz to change up handwritten or typed homework s It was effective and it helped with learning the material Face-to-face lectures are better I liked it. It was good and recommend doing for next year I enjoyed it, it gives some days a little more time to get things done. And it was on a Monday, which was very nice to be allowed to work at your own pace Hybrid format was very effective Bad. Needs to be all face to face It worked well and less stress Based on the 27 students that completed the course evaluation, 20 thought the format worked, 3 prefer the class to be face-to-face only and 4 did not respond to this particular question. One comment that students appeared to reiterate both in the evaluation remarks and in communication with the instructor was that they liked the flexibility the class gave them and it changed it up from the traditional teaching style. Many also expressed their approval of having videos available for each lesson in case they wanted to go back and review something. The instructor also enjoyed the flexibility that the hybrid course had on his schedule. The online lecture allowed the time spent preparing for the class and being in the classroom to be used in other ways such as for research and other scholarly activities. Conclusions This paper discusses the conversion of a required junior/senior-level class from a face-to-face traditional lecture format to a hybrid. The hybrid approach converted one face-to-face lecture each week to virtual format using voiceover PowerPoint videos. The students were then required to complete a quiz for that lesson to assure they obtained the appropriate information. The performance of these students were compared to the previous two offerings of the course that were of the traditional format. The results showed that students in the hybrid section were not negatively affected by the new format and in most cases performed better than the students in the face-to-face format. It should also be noted that even though all lesson videos were made available the attendance in the class did not diminish. Based on the student evaluation remarks as well as personal correspondence with the instructor a significant majority of students enjoyed this hybrid format and felt it was an effective method of learning the course material.
For the fall 2015 semester the instructor will keep the same hybrid format but look for ways to make the online lecture even more active or engaging for students. For example, discussion boards through Blackboard are commonly used by many online instructors. With a class such as this it will be a great opportunity for the class to interact with each other online to discuss different topics within the lecture. It is important that students become exposed to an online or hybrid course in their academic careers especially since more and more professional develop type classes and seminars are being offered online instead of face-to-face. This early exposure will make the transition much smoother. Furthermore, it helps strengthen a student s time management skills as they need to decide if they will use the normal class time to complete the online material or find another time within their schedule. The author believes that if used correctly, hybrid can be an effective tool in higher education. References [1] Borg, M. O., & Shapiro, S. L., Personality type and student performance in principles of economics, Journal of Economic Education, 27(1), 3-25, (1996). [2] Ziegert, A. L., The role of personality temperament and student learning in principles of economics: further evidence, Journal of Economic Education, 31(4), 307-332, (2000). [3] He, W., Gajski, D., Farkas, G., Warschauer, M., Implementing flexible hybrid instruction in an electrical engineering course: The best of three worlds?, Computers and Education, 81(2015), 59-68, (2015). [4] Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., and Jones, K., Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Washington, DC, (2010). [5] Ilgu, A.K. and Jahren, C., Evaluation of Hybrid Course Implementation in Construction Engineering, ASEE North Midwest Section Conference, Iowa City, IA, October, (2014). [6] Branoff, T. and Wiebe, E., Face-to-face, hybrid, or online? Issues faculty face redesigning an introductory engineering graphics course, Engineering Design Graphics Journal, 73(1), 25-31, (2009). MICHAEL V. GANGONE Dr. Michael Gangone currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler. His areas of research interest include innovative bridge research and design methods along with the development of structural health monitoring strategies for infrastructure systems. He also has a strong commitment to teaching and improving engineering education.