Abstract
Students with a poor conceptual grounding in mathematics find studying statistics at university level challenging, especially when taught through traditional methods. However, this challenge can be addressed by exposing students to technology-assisted methodologies. A blended learning mode of delivery offers a variety of options to the teaching and learning process, overcoming shortcomings such as the lack of face-to-face interaction, providing support in using technologies and giving more advantages, such as flexibility and increased engagement, than pure face-to-face teaching and learning. When designing a blended learning intervention, careful consideration should be given to pedagogical principles that will enable a high degree of learning success with a balanced degree of delivery effort. This study aims to distil pedagogical design principles for a blended learning intervention addressing the performance of first-year undergraduate statistics students.
The first generation of the cultural-historical activity theory, the community of inquiry model, and Blending with Purpose: The Multimodal Model underpinned the research questions asked in the study and informed the data collection processes and analysis procedures, broadening the scope of inquiry.
This design-based study, which was embedded in a pragmatic paradigm, used a sequential mixed-method approach to collect and analyse data. Purposive sampling was used to select 152 students in Iteration 1, 96 students in Iteration 2, and 146 students in Iteration 3 from the population of first-year undergraduate statistics students at the University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, who were registered for a BSc degree in the Department of Statistics in the Faculty of Science.
The researcher collected qualitative data from the statistics curriculum document, learning guide, interviews with lecturers and experts on blended learning, and students' written reflections. The researcher used a questionnaire to collect quantitative data on students' perceptions of the blended learning intervention (BLI) and their assessment results to determine the effect of the BLI on their performance.
The qualitative data analysis procedures included document analysis of the curriculum and learning guide and content analyses of the interviews and written reflections. The
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quantitative data analysis procedures consisted of a factor and reliability analysis of the questionnaire and a paired 𝑡-test to analyse the assessment results with the assistance of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0.
The findings revealed that pedagogical components such as blended learning, learning outcomes, engaging content, knowledge construction, collaboration, interaction and support, formative assessments, summative assessments, and reflection could be included in a blended learning intervention for first-year undergraduate statistics students. Many students had positive perceptions of the blended learning experience. Overall performance showed an improvement after implementing a blended learning intervention.
Eight pedagogical design principles emanated from the findings:
1.
Set learning outcomes based on the subject content in the curriculum document for each class.
2.
Provide a well-paced range of learning and assessment activities.
3.
Ensure lecturer support through continuous student-lecturer interaction, timely feedback, and technical support using educational technology tools.
4.
Inspire active knowledge construction and the contextualisation of content by collecting and using real-life data.
5.
Cultivate a collaborative learning environment that enhances group cohesion and environment acclimation.
6.
Engage students actively, using meaningful content and predominantly synchronous discussions and activities.
7.
Provide opportunities for reflection on knowledge gained, engagement in activities, and strategies for improved learning experiences.
8.
Create a sense of belonging by ensuring tutor support through continuous student-tutor interaction.
The study's main findings suggest that blended learning can enhance students' learning experience. The participants' positive perceptions of the BLI suggest that blended learning is a viable teaching and learning approach. Improvement in overall performance after implementing a BLI suggests that blended learning can improve performance.
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The study adds to the scholarly research on teaching and learning statistics at the university level. Using a three-iteration design-based research (DBR) approach to investigate first-year undergraduate statistics students' perceptions of blended learning is novel within the South African higher education context. The study contributes to theory by providing pedagogical design principles for a blended learning environment to teach and learn first-year undergraduate statistics based on empirical research, emphasising practical guidelines for implementation, developing an understanding of statistics, building a learning community, actively engaging students, and improving performance. Future researchers within the local and international contexts could use the pedagogical design principles emanating from this study to investigate BLI in other disciplines.
Key Words: Blended learning; design-based research; intervention; pedagogical design principles; performance; statistics; students