Teachers in higher education are the principal participants in blended learning (BL). Without their engagement, any attempt at BL might fail. In the process of BL implementation, they are faced with various challenges and are mostly not well prepared. However, studies have often neglected the feeling of teachers and their anxieties during BL implementation. There is insufficient research on teacher-related factors, especially teacher support. To address this question, a questionnaire was conducted among 123 respondents from 10 universities in China between March and May 2020. An analysis of the data collected shows that BL is widely recognised by teachers, but they lack confidence in their competence in BL implementation. The top three difficulties that faculty face are increased workload, a lack of funds to build their own courses and a lack of time to prepare online activities. Further, respondents have a clear need for pedagogical support, financial and infrastructure support, policy support, technical support and emotional support. These findings indicate that a targeted support system should be constructed to address these difficulties. Special attention should be paid to formulating BL guidance, offering a supportive environment that values BL efforts and relieving the workload of faculty.   Implications for practice or policy: BL teachers need various support to design and implement BL courses. Higher education institutions should formulate guidance and clarify the definition and key implementation elements to guide BL practice. Management departments of higher education institutions should take effective measures to alleviate the burden of teachers. The training of teachers in the application of BL technology should focus on strengthening technological content knowledge and technological pedagogical knowledge.

Understanding the relationship between emotion and learning behavior is conducive to learners’ well-being and effective learning. However, previous studies only regarded emotion as an additional variable, and there lacked specific research on academic emotion in the blended learning (BL) context. BL is characterized by systematic integration of online and face-to-face (F2F) learning, hence leading to special emotional experiences. What is the emotional experience of learners in online learning? What is it like face-to-face? Does the connection between the two have an impact on learners’ emotional experience? In order to address these questions and explore the emotional profiles of learners in BL context, this study constructs a typical BL context in a Chinese university, and conducts questionnaire and focus group interviews with 89 participants at the end of the semester. Data analysis showed that learners’ emotions of face-to-face classes are more intense than those of online learning, both positive and negative. As to positive emotions, paired-sample t-test shows that mean values of feeling of challenge, comfort, sense of community, satisfaction, enthusiasm and interest in F2F are significantly higher than those of online learning. About negative emotions, stress, embarrassment, tension and frustration of F2F are significantly stronger than those of online learning, while boredom and disappointment of online learning are more intense than those for F2F section. Theme analysis identified 11 influencing factors of academic emotions, among which degree of difficulty, readiness before class, workload, and interaction are unique to BL and deserve special attention. These findings help form a picture of learners’ academic emotions in BL context. It also provides practical reference for BL course design, so as to inspire emotions which are conducive to effective and in-depth learning.

Blended learning based on MOOCs (b-MOOC) has become a new and wide-spread approach to combining internet technologies with face-to-face instruction in higher education. In the implementation of b-MOOCs, learning support or scaffolding proves to be essential and determines to some extent the success of blended learning, while available literature shows lack of re-search on it. Aiming at exploring a feasible learning support approach for b-MOOCs in practice, this study constructed a support framework with four key elements of resources (R), interaction (I), strategy (S) and evaluation (E) support, briefed as RISE, and implemented it in the Business English course in a Chinese university. A survey and semi-structured interview were conducted to make clear its effects, the perceptions and expectations of students. It shows that the RISE support initiative got wide recognition and resulted in various improvements, promoting learning autonomy, improving learning strategy, increasing interaction and time devoted. As to suggestions, more targeted and higher degree of support is expected by learners and they show preference for face-to-face instruction and suggestion is raised that the proportion of face-to-face section should be no less than the online part. The results of this study may offer practical reference in b-MOOC design about how to support learning process of students and what components and methods are effective.