The Attitudes of Social Work Students towards the Efficacy of Applying Blended Education

Abstract

The current study aims at identifying students' attitudes towards blended education in achieving theoretical knowledge in addition to practice skills for the casework .It also tends to determine the benefits of applying blended learning. This study is a quantitative research and uses a measure of social service assessing students 'attitudes toward the effectiveness of blended learning application. The study has taken place at the Higher Institute of Social Service in Alexandria, and the study sample consists of 600 male and female students. The results of the study show that there are differences between male and female attitudes in using blended education in achieving theoretical knowledge and in acquiring practical skills in favor of females. The study also confirms the existence of differences between rural and urban attitudes regarding the use of blended education in gaining theoretical knowledge as well as in developing practical skills for the benefit of urban students. Moreover, the study stresses that there are many obstacles students face in taking advantage of blended learning. Key word: attitudes, efficacy, blended education, professional practice skills Introduction:The recent developments and the massive changes in the labor market are reflected upon the teaching processes and strategies in high education stages moving from traditional teaching methods to methods that are more suitable to students' mindsets meeting their needs and achieving performance effectively and efficiently and the targeted learning outcomes. As a result, it has become necessary to search for teaching strategies that can help to raise students' attention and enable them to participate in the teaching situation and engage them in thinking about what they learn; thus, this results in acquiring information and using them in solving problems (Kelada, 2009). Electronic learning is done through educational environments of both the educator and the learner providing limitless and continuous communication. The electronic learning environments refer to "a system that includes providing a good content and preparing a proper interactive interface that include proper tools for presenting the content and achieve the interaction." (Saleh, 2005, p. 59).Many forms and types of electronic education including blended learning (BL) which has become the focus of many educators and academics as Smith (2016) referred that blended learning focuses on providing learning in an interactive flexible manner through many variable and interesting methods that help finding learning environments suitable for the learners.