This study addressed several outcomes, implications, and possible future directions for blended learning (BL) in higher education in a world where information communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly communicate with each other. In considering effectiveness, the authors contend that BL coalesces around access, success, and students' perception of their learning environments. Success and withdrawal rates for face-to-face and online courses are compared to those for BL as they interact with minority status. Investigation of student perception about course excellence revealed the existence of robust if-then decision rules for determining how students evaluate their educational experiences. Those rules were independent of course modality, perceived content relevance, and expected grade. The authors conclude that although blended learning preceded modern instructional technologies, its evolution will be inextricably bound to contemporary information communication technologies that are approximating some aspects of human thought processes.

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Anders Norberg has a teaching background in philosophy and comparative religion and as a director of studies at upper secondary level and in adult education, but serves now as an education strategist for the Council of Skellefteå in Northern Sweden, working together with regional universities in the further development of a young multi-university campus. He has been in education development for 20 years, at Campus Skellefteå, at Umeå University and in several European R&D projects. His special area of interest is education access and logistics in connection to new technology and he is also a conference organizer and lecturer on these topics. Since 1996, she has served as the liaison for faculty research of distributed learning and teaching effectiveness at UCF. Patsy specializes in statistics, graphics, program evaluation, and applied data analysis. She has extensive experience in research methods including survey development, interviewing, and conducting focus groups and frequently serves as an evaluation consultant to school districts, and industry and government organizations. She has also received funding from several government and industrial agencies including the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has co-authored numerous articles and chapters on blended and online learning and frequently presents on these topics. Charles D. DziubanA TIME-BASED BLENDED LEARNING MODEL 3 ABSTRACT Purpose: This paper outlines a time-based strategy for blended learning that illustrates course design and delivery by framing students learning opportunities in synchronous and asynchronous modalities.Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper deconstructs the evolving components of blended learning in order to identify changes induced by digital technologies for enhancing teaching and learning environments.Findings: This paper hypothesizes that blended learning may be traced back to early medieval times when printed material provided the first asynchronous learning opportunities. However, the digitalization of contemporary learning environments results in a de-emphasis on teaching and learning spaces. When time becomes the primary organizing construct for education in a technology-supported environment, blending possibilities emerge around five components: migration, support, location, learner empowerment, and flowResearch limitation/Implications: This study enables the readers to conceptualize blended learning as a combination of modern media, communication modes, times and places in a new kind of learning synthesis in place of traditional classrooms and technology with the teacher serving as a facilitator of a collective learning process.Practical Implications-The major implication of this paper is that modern learning technologies have freed students and educators from the lock in of classroom space as the being the primary component of blended learning, thereby emphasizing learning rather than teaching in the planning process.Originality/Value: This paper proposes a new model of blended learning ...

The authors discuss the transformational potential of blended learning and the importance of alignment with strategic initiatives of the institution. They show that key elements for student and faculty support result in numerous positive outcomes, including increased access and the ability to manage growth effectively. Research findings with very large student samples show the impact of blended learning on student achievement, identify predictors of student success, and illustrate correlates of student satisfaction with blended learning when ambivalent feelings mediate student perceptions of the educational environment. By illustrating these principles through a case study in a large metropolitan research university, the authors contend that strategic alignment and evaluation results inform each other in an incremental, transformational process.

The authors explore the possible relationship between student satisfaction with online learning and the theory of psychological contracts. The study incorporates latent trait models using the image analysis procedure and computation of Anderson and Rubin factors scores with contrasts for students who are satisfied, ambivalent, or dissatisfied with their online learning experiences. The findings identify three underlying satisfaction components: engaged learning, agency, and assessment. The factor score comparisons indicate that students in the general satisfaction categories characterize important differences in engaged learning and agency, but not assessment. These results lead the authors to hypothesize that predetermined, but unspecified expectations (i.e., psychological contracts) for online courses by both students and faculty members are important advance organizers for clarifying student satisfaction.