Factors affecting students’ blended learning - a study at a university in Vietnam = những yếu tố ảnh hưởng đến việc học theo mô hình học tập kết hợp của sinh viên - nghiên cứu tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIPThe thesis entitled: “Factors affecting students’ blended learning- A study at auniversity in Vietnam” has been submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.An

INTRODUCTION . Sàn H212 11 re, 1

Background to the Study - 5 v12 11T HH ng HH HH nung 4 1 Socio-cultural context Of V1€tfiaTm c5: S+ + xxx xxx re 4 2 The application of ICT in higher education in V1efnam .- 5 5 s<<<e<++ 10 3 Vietnamese EFL students’ personal and psychological characteristics

1.2.1 Socio-cultural context of Vietnam

According to Chin (2015), “Learning is a culturally mediated process, and cultural factors may conflict with the patterns of teaching and learning” (p.19). Chang & Tsai (2005) also added that students from one cultural context may have different attitudes towards educational interventions that are based on practices in another cultural context This is understandable because “people are not just living in a simple world but live in a complex cultural environment consisting of synthetic values, norms, customs, beliefs, and social connections.” (Chin, 2015, p.18). Therefore, to achieve the aim of this research to uncover the factors affecting students’ learning in a blended course, it will be a fundamental shortcoming if we do not take socio-cultural context of Vietnam into consideration.

Situated in the Southeast Asia, Vietnam had had a long history of being colonized by Chinese for nearly a thousand of years before Ngo Quyen-the king ofVietnam from 938-944 AD- defeated the invader and declared the independence of the country in 938 However, it was not until the mid-nineteenth century thatVietnam was totally liberated from Chinese domination For this reason, Chinese cultural values, especially Confucianism had a profound impact on Vietnamese culture as commented by Goodman (2005): “The Vietnamese view of the world and how it worked, of family and society and the roles of its members, and of concepts of duty and virtue, all bore a heavy resemblance to Confucian interpretation of life” (p.31) Education was not an exception because Confucianism affected both the teachers’ teaching and students’ learning philosophy and practice It serves as “implicit regulations, norms and conventions” (Rules) (Engestrém,1990, p.79) that may affect students’ learning, especially in a new environment- blended course This is confirmed by Chin (2015) who claimed that “ the conflict between the openness, low power distance, individualism, and self-oriented of blended learning courses and the Confucius-style influenced, closed, high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, conservatism, collectivism, passive, non-verbal communication, and high context, Asian communication patterns implemented in traditional Confucian instruction frequently results in a variety of challenges and barriers for Asian students participating in the higher education community” (pp.19-20).

The conquest by the French in 1858 marked the end of Confucianism as the State ideology in Vietnam and from that time, the French colonialism (1858-1954), followed by Japanese occupation (1940-1945) and finally the American intervention in the South added some Western elements to the traditional Vietnamese culture including education system and ideology However, it is undeniable that “Confucian moral philosophy remains the guiding principle that regulates [Vietnamese] people’s attitudes and behaviors and social relationships” (Xuan, 2013, p.13)

This socio-cultural context of Vietnam may have certain influences on Vietnamese students’ learning especially in a blended course because many previous studies have acknowledged the effect of culture on learning and on people’s thinking such as Nisbett and Miyamoto (2005), Lun, Fischer & Ward (2010) and Hofstede (2005, 2010) In this study, to clarify the impacts of culture on Vietnamese people’s thinking and behaviors in general and on students’ learning in particular, Hofstede’s cultural framework was employed His framework views cultural differences among nations based on six dimensions: Power distance, Collectivism vs Individualism, Femininity vs masculinity, Uncertainty avoidance, long-term vs short- term orientation, Indulgence vs Restrain (Hofstede et al., 2010)

Firstly, in terms of Power distance, which is defined as “the extent to which less power members of institutions or organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p.61), Vietnam sits in the high-ranking scale (at 22TM -25” among 76 countries) and belongs to a large-power-distance country group While equality is often sought in a small- power-distance country, the inequality between teachers and students is often demonstrated by high respect for teachers and dependence of students on them The learning process is often characterized by teacher-centered approach rather than student-centered one The teacher is often considered to have the highest status in the class Previous research shows that students have great respect for their teachers because they regard the teachers as the knowledge transmitters as well as an important source of knowledge (Ngan, 2011; Thanh, 2010) Students are often expected to sit quietly in class and listen attentively to the teacher’s presentation However, this aspect may exert negative effect on students’ learning because they tend to work towards quiet learning, respecting attentiveness and compliance with the teachers (Chin, 2015) As a result, they are not encouraged to ask questions in class, tend to wait until they are called to answer the teacher’s questions, often conceal disagreement, avoid conflicts and reject confronting or challenging their teachers (Tuong, 2002) Also, due to high power distance, students may find it difficult to initiate a conversation with the teachers to ask for help and support when necessary In addition, while blended learning requires students to be responsible for and play an active role in their own learning (Alebaikan, 2010), Vietnamese students seem to be passive and heavily dependent on the teachers for both learning motivation and content acquisition (Danh & William, 2009; Tuong, 2002), leading to a decrease in their self-regulated capacity.

Secondly, with regards to individualism vs collectivism, which addresses the degree of interdependence a society maintain among its members, according to the Individual Index Values in Hofstede et al (2010, p.96), Vietnam gains a score of

20, which means it is considered as a highly collectivistic society In a collectivist classroom, students are not willing to speak up in response to their teachers until they are personally invited because they suppose that they are speaking up on behalf of the whole group Besides, members of collectivist society often operate in closely knit social groups; as a result, they feel hesitant to speak up in larger groups, or a group of “relative strangers” or “out-group members” In discussions or collaborative projects, they tend to utilize modest and face-saving techniques and confrontations, or conflicts are often avoided so that no one is hurt.

Regarding masculinity vs femininity, on one hand, based on the Masculinity Index Values in Hofstede et al., (2010), Vietnam is considered a feminine society.

In other words, Vietnamese people tend to seek agreement, value solidarity and cooperation Consequently, students who own different ideas and want to make themselves visible in class may be ridiculed Instead, they are more likely to harmonize themselves in solidarity to reach consensus A case in point is that

“Vietnamese students are not so supportive of practices such as answering questions in front of the class or participations in debates in person” (Thanh, 2010, p.27) On the other hand, Vietnam also demonstrates some features of masculine culture which emphasizes the assertiveness and competitiveness Xuan (2013) reported some examples to support this argument such as “praise for excellent students”,

“competition in class, trying to excel”, “competitive learning” (p.17) because Vietnamese people often appreciate individual learning effort and achievement through examination.

With respect to uncertainty avoidance, which refers to “the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations”(Hofstede et al., 2010, p.191), Vietnam scores 30 according to the UncertaintyAvoidance Index Values (Hofstede et al., 2010) With this score, Vietnam can be regarded as a weak uncertainty avoidance country However, literature about teaching and learning in Vietnam indicated the opposite results, which manifested the features of a strong uncertainty avoidance country For instance, many researchers including Mai, Terlouw and Pilot (2005), Xuan (2013), Binh (2012) all reached an agreement that Vietnamese students were concerned with the right answer and at the same time, they had low tolerance for mistakes or ambiguous situations This may lead to some consequences To illustrate, Binh (2012) indicated that “one trainer was still keen on knowledge presenting and most trainees (five out of six) still wanted to listen to the trainers because they appreciated the trainer’ knowledge and experience” (p.6) Another problem with students in a high uncertainty avoidance country is that they are hesitant to express their viewpoints until they make sure of their answers, resulting in their reservedness in communication in class.

Concerning long-term vs short-term orientation, based on the study by Hofstede et al., 2010, Vietnam shares the features of long-term orientation culture countries People in these countries often appreciate “perseverance, thrift, ordering relationships by status, and having sense of shame” (Hofstede, 2011, p.15) This is clearly reflected in education in which success or failure is often considered as the results of presence or lack of efforts If a student fails in the exam, he is often believed not to have tried hard enough (Mai et al., 2005; Xuan, 2013) Also, families and society often hold high expectations for students to bring the glory to their whole family thanks to their excellent performance in study, which contributes to a sense of increasing exam pressure to them.

Finally, relating to Indulgence vs Restraint, which demonstrates the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, Vietnam gets low scores on this dimension It means that Vietnam can be described as a restraint culture (Hofstede et al., 2010) In other words, Vietnamese people often take it for granted that their actions are restrained by social norms and indulging themselves is unacceptable This perception is clearly manifested in Vietnamese education in which both the teachers and the students must adhere to strict rules Teachers may fall under the influence of top-down governance, for example, “In Vietnam, , teachers have learnt to follow the rules established by the ministry and organize their behavior accordingly” (Bjork, 2005; p 164, cited in Saito et al., 2008) Besides, students’ behaviors may also be regulated by their teachers: “there are many ways in which students can be placed under their teachers’ rules” (Saito et al., 2008)

In addition to the influence of Vietnamese cultural features, the current social context in Vietnam also presents some distinctive characteristics that should be taken into consideration when implementing BL In Vietnam, the significance of English language teaching is highlighted because its history is closely combined with politics, economy and social affairs (Wright, 2002) When the open-door policy was implemented in Vietnam, the role of English teaching was increasingly emphasized because “National governments and individuals worldwide seem to see teaching a language (English) to all learners in state schools as an important means of increasing human capital on which future national economic development and

8 political power depends” (Wedell, 2011, p 275) Also, thanks to this economic reform from 1986, Vietnam attracted “a stronger flow of direct foreign investment” (Canh, 2019, p.9), which underlined the urgent need for an English-speaking labor force In 2008, MOET launched the “National Foreign Languages Project 2020” for the period of 2008-2020 to accelerate English language education reform in Vietnam (Vietnamese Government, 2008) with a hope to create a generation of students who can “communicate, study and work in the globalized, multilingual and multicultural environment of integration” (Vietnamese Government, 2008, p.1). Besides, this project aimed at promoting teachers’ English language proficiency and knowledge of language pedagogy and language acquisition (Vietnamese Government, 2008) However, the results, despite intensive training, seemed to fall short of the government’s expectations As reported by Hue (2013), by the end of

2015, the percentage of teachers who could meet the proficiency requirement was still restricted Similarly, many other researchers reflected that a number of students after graduating from universities were still communicatively incompetent (Canh,

Research aims and research QuestiONns -¿- ô+ 5+ *+*Ê*Ê+E+EeEEkekekrrsrsreererk 15 1.4 Scope Of the

The aim of this study is to explore the factors that may contribute to or hinder students’ learning in a blended English course in Vietnamese context so that

15 both the teachers and the policy makers can identify which needs to be improved and which should continue to be promoted.

To achieve these aims, this study addresses the following research questions:

1 How do the students in the blended course perceive the factors contributing to their learning outcome in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes?

2 How do the students in the blended course perceive the factors hindering their learning outcome in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes?

In this study, contributing factors could be understood as those perceived by students to enhance their knowledge, skills or positive attitude towards their learning On the contrary, the hindering factors were those that were perceived to have negative impacts on students’ attitude towards their learning and towards the blended course or prevent their knowledge acquisition or skill enhancement.

This study focuses on revealing factors affecting students’ learning in a blended English course in a higher education institution of Vietnam It is assumed that not only the students themselves, but also other social and cultural factors contribute to their knowledge construction during their learning in blended course. Therefore, in order to shed light on those factors, this study was conducted from the lens of the sociocultural perspective, which supposes that knowledge is socially mediated and personally constructed (Vygotsky, 1978; Leont’ev, 1981; Engestrửm, 1987; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).

Besides, this study concentrates on uncovering factors affecting students’ learning process in a blended English course from their own perspectives The perspectives of other stakeholders such as teachers, system developers, administrators towards the contributing and hindering factors were not taken into consideration because the researcher wished to get an insight into the perceptions of students only who are “important partners in any learning process” (Kintu et al.,

Significance of the SUẦy - - ôc+ he gn 16 1.6 Structure 00/30 1100

This study made its contribution to theory, methodology and practicality in second language education.

Theoretically, this research contributed greatly to the relevant literature in the field of blended learning research in Vietnamese higher education contexts. Although the adoption of BL has been growing actively in higher education worldwide (Graham, 2014), Vietnam is still at an initial stage of implementation As a result, the majority of the research literature has been conducted within northern America (Spring & Graham, 2017), UK and other western countries, whereas there has been insufficient body of research concerning BL effectiveness and factors affecting its implementation in the context of Vietnam According to Seraji (2020),

“BL has not attained the same position in other parts of the world as in northern America and examining the status of BL in other areas of the world is essential for promoting knowledge in this regard” (p.3) This study filled in this gap by revealing numerous factors which are typical and unique in the context of Vietnam As mentioned above, BL is context-dependent; therefore, the research results are of great value because they helped to identify which favorable aspects of the current blended course should continue to be promoted and which negative aspects need interference to be improved.

Methodologically, the contribution of the study lied in the employment of Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems (CABLS) as a theoretical and analytical framework in a qualitative method research to explore the factors affecting students’ learning in a blended environment Because there seemed to be no cohesive theoretical conversations among researchers studying blended learning (Halverson et al., 2014), a number of models, theories have been widely used in blended research so far such as Community of Inquiry (COI), Moore’s theory of transactional distance, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), etc However, by using Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems (CABLS) which was newly suggested by Wang et al (2015), the current study has proved that this framework is perfectly suitable for BL research, and it may provide a more comprehensive view of all components of BL, from which the factors affecting its implementation can be revealed.

Practically, the significance of this study was related to the topic and the practical implementations of the findings The findings of this study are expected to

17 make its contribution to enhancing the effectiveness of blended courses in higher education not only in one university under study but also in other universities in Vietnam and other countries which have similar HE contexts This also conforms to Vietnamese High Education Reform Agenda (HERA) aiming to “renovate higher education fundamentally and comprehensively” with the application of technology as an essential means to reinforce improvements in teaching pedagogy (Vietnamese Government, 2005, p.1) Especially, in the current context of Vietnam and the whole world with Covid-19 pandemic spreading rapidly and developing complicatedly, the requirement for promoting distance education in general and BL in particular becomes increasingly crucial because organizing face-to-face classes is impossible (MOET, 2021) Also, Directive 800 (MOET, 2021) also emphasized the urgent duty to ensure the quality of education in the context of the Covid epidemic with the motto “stop going to school, don’t stop learning” in order to achieve the dual goal of both effectively fighting the epidemic and ensuring the school year plan For this reason, in the contemporary period, the implementation of blended courses or online courses appears to be the optimum alternatives and should be the Ministry of Education and Training’s priority The study made a timely contribution to improving the quality of these blended courses and promoting their potentials to meet students’ needs in this special situation.

This thesis consists of five chapters The first chapter provides the rationale which motivates the researcher to perform research into factors affecting students’ learning in a blended environment, the background, aims as well as the significance of the study.

Chapter two reviews the literature related to this study This chapter supplies an overview of BL including definitions, types, benefits, challenges, underlying learning theories, pedagogical principles for its implementation It also gives a summary of the factors affecting blended learning that have been reflected in the literature so far as well as the most influential models and theories used in BL

18 research, a discussion of these theories and models, followed by the demonstration of Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems (CABLS) which is employed as the theoretical framework of this study This chapter also summarizes the research trends in BL all over the world in general and in Vietnam in particular to identify the gap that this research needs to fulfill.

Chapter three describes the methodological choices for this study It starts with the research context of this study, followed by the choice of research paradigm, the justification of using qualitative research approach and reasons for utilizing Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems (CABLS) as an analytical framework and its adaptation from the original version to suit the aims of this study This chapter also clarifies the research instrument development including semi-structured interviews and document analysis The data collection and data analysis procedures are also clarified in this chapter This chapter ends with a description of the researcher’s role in this study, trustworthiness of the study and some ethical considerations.

Chapter four presents the findings of this study based on thematic analysis, accompanied by discussion of the findings based on the literature review Data collected from the qualitative method about the factors affecting students’ learning in a blended environment are analyzed in alignment with six key components of this framework: Learner, Teacher, Content, Technology, Learner support and Institution, then they are presented by themes corresponding to two given research questions This chapter ends with a summary of the research results of the study.

Chapter five gives a summary of the study findings, some concluding remarks, some recommendations, and implications of the study as well as the limitations and suggestions for further studies.

References and Appendices come at the end of the study.

LITERATURE REVIEYW HH He 20 2.1 An overview of blended ẽearTIng - - 5 + + 5+ S + E+x#EsEeeeEekeerseereeekeereerke 20 2.1.1 Understandings of “Blended learninng” -+- +5 tt +t*xvxsxexexetrerrersrererrree 20 2.1.2 Types of blended ẽearn1ng .- - - + 5s + ****k+EekEEekekekkekekrreekrrrkrkreerke 22 2.1.3 Benefits U09) 0ì i0 1n

Challenges of using blended learning - 5-5 + s 5+ s+x+xeeereeeeereeerseree 31 2.1.5 Blended learning in EFL eduCatIOIn 5 + 5+ 5+ + S+£+x+Ee+exexeeeereeeereeeee 37 2.1.6 Pedagogical principles for the implementation of blended learning

Although BL can demonstrate a number of advantages and opportunities for all the stakeholders; however, how to successfully implement BL for SLA purposes is still debatable (Coryell & Chlup, 2007; Hong & Samimy, 2010; Stracke, 2007). Early studies have pointed out some challenges to the implementation of BL that should be taken into account.

In terms of students, there are several student-related challenges in the application of BL, among which the most outstanding ones are students’ attitudes, self-regulation and computer literacy skills First of all, it has been widely accepted that student attitude is a key variable of any learning process (Coryell & Chlup, 2007; Hong & Samimy, 2010) Only when students have positive attitudes, can they develop a sense of self-responsibility and play an active role in their own learning. Research has pinpointed that students’ negative attitudes and perceptions towards BL can hinder its success An example was the case of three students at the University of Minster, Germany, who disliked the BL experience to such a degree that they left the class only after a few weeks in a study by Stracke (2007) This study revealed that the reason behind their dropout decision was their negative attitudes towards teachers’ support, complementarity between online and offline components, print materials and computer medium Students supposed that the degree of teachers’ support and complementarity between two learning components were insufficient and inappropriate for them Also, they preferred the conventional printed materials especially in reading and writing rather than the online materials. Moreover, negative comments were made regarding the difficulty of working on computer screen These negative attitudes led to their resistance and reluctance to learn in a blended environment, which ended up in their dropout of the course This

31 finding was consonant with those in a research conducted by Barr (2004) who believed that students’ negative attitudes towards BL may lead to the fate of this type of course He pointed out that when students were resistant to the employment of technology in education, they might come to the erroneous conclusion that computers had little value in language learning In addition, their resistance might prevent students from making the most of the learning opportunities afforded to them by computer technology As a result, the effectiveness of the blended course would be reduced.

Besides, BL defined as “the thoughtful integration of classroom face-to-face learning experiences with online learning experiences” (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004) requires more self-regulated learning skills from students than in a traditional class (Peverly, Brobst, Graham, & Shaw, 2003) However, not many students, in their first years at university, are able to carry out the self-regulated learning practices, possibly because of their previous learning experiences in teacher-centered learning environments at high schools (Alebaikan, 2010) As we all know, in teacher- centered approach, students seem to play a passive role in their learning and mostly dependent on the teachers, as a result, many studies showed that when put into a BL environment, students faced difficulties in managing time, motivating, controlling and directing independent learning (Alebaikan, 2010; Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013; Stracke, 2007) In many cases, the importance of self-study phrase was not recognized, and online component was still regarded as optional or less important than face-to-face classes (Alebaikan, 2010; Comas-Quinn, 2011; Murphy & Southgate, 2011)

Together with the challenges caused by students’ negative attitudes and insufficient self-regulated skills, their lack of computer literacy skills is also a barrier for the success of BL Some students may be unfamiliar with employing computer and web-based technology for their learning The problems coped by students, which are summarized from previous studies were various In some cases, students had to cope with technical problems such as problems with Internet connection and assignment submission systems or the requirement for additional

32 softwares (Chew, 2009; Larsen, 2012; Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013) In particular, not all students were capable of using online tools in their learning, for example, Skype, video conference and voice-chat to support their language learning (Murphy

& Southgate, 2011) With reference to learning materials, some students had trouble making meaning out of materials presented (Oh & Park, 2009), or correlating online materials with learning in face-to-face classes (Chew, 2009) Noticeably, many students were reported to experience a sense of isolation or feeling lost and struggling with technology during their BL courses (Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013; Reinders, 2012).

The challenges originated not only from students but also from teachers. Young (2008) once confirmed that the instructors’ pedagogical effectiveness had a profound effect on student learning However, research showed that in general, teachers were not sufficiently prepared to teach with technology (Hubbard, 2008; Kessler, 2006; Reinders, 2009) In the context of a “clear demand for technology- proficient language instructors” (Hubbard, 2008, p 177), current teacher training programs seemed to mainly focus on digital literacy or orientation about specific software programs (Kessler, 2006) Nevertheless, “Knowing how a program works does not equate to knowing how to use it in teaching situation” (Reinders, 2009, p.16) Consequently, previous studies also reported a large number of problems encountered by teachers in their real teaching in blended courses, for instance, problems with giving online feedback, facilitating students’ online discussion and community, or addressing and managing online problems (Alebaikan, 2010; Chew, 2009; Vaughan, 2007)

Also related to teacher’s pedagogy, BL requires a radical change in teachers’ pedagogical practices Like any teaching approach accompanied by a particular teaching method, BL is characterized by a more student-centered pedagogical approach, which addresses students’ diverse learning needs and facilitates their active and collaborative learning (Vaughan, 2007) However, some teachers who are used to a teacher- centered approach had considerable difficulties in integrating students’ self-study periods into their teaching in face-to-face classes (Stracke,

2007) Furthermore, instead of facilitating students’ meaningful and interactive communication, language accuracy was still the main focus of the lesson (Comas- Quinn, 2011).

Besides, teachers’ ICT competence or skills and ICT confidence was another crucial barrier to the integration of ICT in general and BL in particular According to Peeraer and Van Petegem (2010), “A very significant determinant of teacher’s levels of engagement in ICT is their level of confidence in using the technologies” (p.3) This was supported by many other researchers such as Dawes (2000), Larner and Timberlake (1995), Russell and Bradly (1997, cited in Jones, 2004), who agreed that if teachers had little or no confidence in using computers in their work, they would try to avoid them altogether.

In addition, similar to the students, teachers’ attitudes and perceptions play an essential role in determining the success of BL implementation (Dziuban, Picciano,

& Graham, 2013; Garrison & Vaughan, 2013) If they have a positive attitude, they are more likely to experiment and more willing to integrate technology into their teaching (Samarawickrema & Stacey, 2007) Sadly enough, some teachers were resistant to the implementation of BL (Comas-Quinn, 2011; Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013; Stracke, 2007) due to some understandable reasons In the first place, they were required to take on additional workload when investing time on acquiring new technological and teaching skills or preparing BL lessons (Benson et al., 2011; Kaleta et al., 2005) Specifically, they were supposed to plan teaching ahead, design new learning activities incorporating online and face-to-face components and monitor students’ learning closely to scaffold their learning (Joosten et al., 2013; Reinders, 2012) as well as “successfully manage online interaction, incorporate new methods of assessment and use tools in the LMS” (Joosten et al., 2013, p.174) All this work is quite time-consuming and requires much effort and patience from teachers Most importantly, as stated by Jones (2004), one important area of teachers’ attitudes towards ICT lied in their understanding of how it would benefit their work and their students’ learning Research has shown that teachers’ resistance or reception to integrate technology in their teaching practice resulted from their

34 educational belief (Hermans et al., 2008) and teachers’ belief could be considered as a barrier to ICT integration (Ertmer, 2005, cited in Hermans et al., 2008) If they are unaware of the merits of ICT or BL for students and for themselves, they will reject to employing it or cannot take full advantage of it.

Another challenge when applying blended courses may come from high education institutions because the lack of institutional support may affect both teachers’ and students’ teaching and learning experiences, and the quality of the course in general As reported by Garrison and Kanuka (2004), institutions played a crucial role in creating the necessary policies, planning, resources, and support systems to enable successful implementation of a BL program However, there was often a lack of awareness and clear policy or strategic plans to support BL application (Wallace & Young, 2010) Besides, poor technical infrastructure and lack of teacher and student support are also responsible for the failure to achieve desirable results of BL courses Infrastructure here may include computer labs and Internet access, which are major resources for integrating web-based instruction. Nevertheless, in fact, other researchers reported a large number of problems related to this such as a lack of on-campus Internet coverage and additional softwares to design blended courses (Alebaikan, 2010), a lack of technological stability and reliability (Chew, 2009; Comas-Quinn, 2011), a lack of accessibility to Internet- connected computers (Ocak, 2011) Furthermore, as stated by Vaughan (2007),

“support for students and faculty is a key component of blended learning. Technology training and support should be available for students and professional development support for the faculty” (p.93), but reality showed that both teachers and students had not received sufficient support to make best use of BL courses and increase their comfort level when using technology in education It was reflected in many studies that students had difficulty adjusting to BL (Aycock et al., 2002; Bonk et al., 2002) due to their lack of essential skills such as self-discipline, self- management especially time management skill, self-motivation, technical skills to deal with any anticipated technical problems in their learning process Similarly, teacher support was still restricted, and the lack of institutional support was

35 identified as one key factor inhibiting teachers’ participation and retention in blended learning implementation As mentioned above, teachers may have a lot of problems dealing with blended courses, therefore, professional development is of great importance to them Some problems can be listed here include the fact that little training was given to teachers, and they were not satisfactorily supported in terms of finance for their additional work and time to commit to BL implementation (Alebaikan, 2010; Ocak, 2011) In other cases, teachers lacked time, professional development and technical support to design and deliver BL courses effectively (Benson et al., 2011; Vaughan, 2007) All in all, insufficient support from institutions may have counterproductive effects on both teachers and students, which hinders the whole blended course efficiency.

Blended learning theories and models - + + 5+ ++s5+£+x++£++e£exeezereeeerseexs 51 2.1.8 Complex adaptive blended learning system (CABLS) -ô¿ 60

According to Graham, Henrie and Gibbons (2013), models and theories are very crucial to the knowledge creation process Explain its significance, Burkhardt and Schoenfeld (2003) supposed that a “reasonably stable theory base allows for a clear focus on important issues and provides sound (though still limited) guidance for the design of improved solutions to important problems” (Burkhardt

& Schoenfeld, 2003, p.6, cited in Graham, Henrie & Gibbons, 2013) To confirm this, Garrison and Vaughan (2008) claimed that without a theoretical framework, research can be random, without rationale, and devoid of valid conclusions and a framework allows for methodical exploration of phenomenon However, as stated by Halverson, Graham, Spring, Drysdale and Henrie (2014), there seemed to be no cohesive theoretical conversations among researchers, leading to the emergence of numerous theories and models relating to BL In this study, due to the research aims to explore the facilitating and hindering factors to students’ learning in a blended environment, the researchers only reviewed some influential theories and models which had been used in BL research and can be applicable in revealing the factors affecting BL based on the literature review These models and theories

51 were described and analyzed in order to shed light on the model that fitted the research aims.

The Community of Inquiry (Col) model was developed by Garrison et al. (2000) as a tool to conceptualize the online learning process in the higher education system and it was the most recently used distance education theory (Tschetter, 2014) However, this model was not only applied to distance education, but it was also pertinent to asynchronous learning and BL environment (Archer & Garrison, 2010) The Col was based on constructivist learning theory and, in this model, Garrison et al (2000) emphasized that learning occured through the combination of three core elements of presence: teaching, cognitive and social presence within a community of inquiry of teachers and students in online or blended classrooms: se Teaching presence: the direct and indirect role and influence of the teacher and perhaps senior students in the design, direction, and facilitation to ensure a meaningful educational experience (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison and Archer, 2001) e Social presence: the extent to which a student’s true self is projected and perceived in an online course (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer, 1999). e Cognitive presence: the extent to which a learner can construct and confirm meaning through discourse in a critical community of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001).

2.1.7.2 Moore’s theory of transactional distance

In addition to Col, Archer and Garrison (2010) claimed that Moore’s theory of transactional distance was the most frequently used theory in distance education. This theory employed a rotation between dialogue, structure, and a learner’s independence to measure transactional distance The formal definitions of some key constructs of this theory are explained as follows: e A dialogue: “is a purposeful, constructive, and valued by each party Each party in a dialogue is respectful and active listener; each is a contributor and builds on the contributions of the other party or parties The direction of a dialogue in an educational relationship is towards the improved understanding of the student.” (Moore, 1993, p.24)

52 e Structure: “expresses the rigidity or flexibility of the programme’s educational objectives, teaching strategies, and evaluation methods It describes the extent to which an educational programme can accommodate or be responsive to each learner’s individual needs” (Moore, 1993, p.26) se Learner autonomy: “is the extent to which in the teaching/learning relationship, it is the learner rather than the teacher who determines the goals, the learning experiences, and the evaluation decisions of the learning programme” (Moore, 1993, p.31) e Transactional distance: “a psychological and communication space to be crossed, a space of potential misunderstanding between the inputs of instructor and those of the learner” (Moore, 1993, p.23)

Evaluating the value of this theory in distance education, Garrison (2000) said that this theory is “invaluable in guiding the complex practice of rational process such as teaching and learning at a distance” (p.3)

The TAM was developed by Davis (1993), and it was considered as a “good theoretical tool to understand users’ acceptance of e-learning” (Park, 2009, p.150). Because technology is an integral part of BL, Technology Acceptance Model theorizes that the effect of external variables such as system characteristics, development process, or training on students’ intention to use are mediated by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use:

System designs Attitude ; Agiala siamese features towards testing

External stimulus Cognitive response Affective response Behavioral response

Figure 2.2 Technology Acceptance Model (Adapted from Davis, 1993:476)

According to Davis et al (1989), “Perceived Usefulness” could be defined as the degree to which an individual believed that using a particular system would promote their job performance Besides, “Perceived Ease of Use” could be understood as the degree to which an individual learner believed that using a system would be free of physical and mental effort Last but not least, “Attitude” meant individual learner’s positive or negative feelings about performing a target behavior.

“External factors” may consist of some system features, situational constraints, or user characteristics (Vishwanath & Goldhaber, 2003) Based on this model, teachers and students’ actual use of the system is influenced by their attitude towards using a system; however, their attitude is determined by Perceived usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use, which are affected by the external variables This model is appropriate for determining the factors that influence teachers or students in their acceptance of new technology.

2.1.7.4 Shea’s Grounded Model for Blended environment

In an attempt to understand learning in a blended environment, Shea (2007) proposed a pyramid framework for blended environments as illustrated in figure 2.3:

Theories of Learning and Instruction

Figure 2.3 A Grounded Model for Blended Environments (Shea, 2007, p.35)

As can be seen, this framework starts with “our assumptions and belief about the nature of knowledge” (Shea, 2007, p.35), followed by the theories of learning that reflect these philosophical underpinnings After that, the pedagogical approaches are articulated, from which the instructional methods and strategies as well as specific learning activities are created.

Badrul Khan’s blended e-learning framework, referred to as Khan’s Octagonal Framework, serves as “a guide to plan, develop, deliver, manage, and evaluate blended learning program” (Singh, 2021, p.16) According to him, to create a meaningful learning environment, a variety of factors must be addressed, and a systematic understanding of these factors could enable the designers to create an effective environment for learners The factors were clustered into eight dimensions, and each dimension in the framework represented a category of issues that needed to be addressed These eight dimensions are illustrated in the table 2.5 below:

Table 2.5 E-learning framework, Khan, n.d, cited in Bowyer & Chambers, 2017)

1 Pedagogical Content analysis, audience analysis, goal analysis, media analysis, design approach, organization and methods and strategies of e-learning environments.

2.Technological —_ Infrastructure planning, hardware and software.

3 Interface design Page and site design, content design, navigation, and usability testing.

4 Evaluation Assessment of learners and evaluation of the instruction and learning environment.

5.Management = Maintenance of learning environment and distribution of information.

6 Resource Online support and resources required to foster meaningful support learning environments.

7 Ethical Social and political influence, cultural diversity, bias, geographical diversity, learner diversity, information accessibility, etiquette, and the legal issues.

8 Institutional Administrative affairs, academic affairs and student services related to e-learning.

This model focuses primarily on e-learning, but it can also be successfully adapted to focus on blended learning as in Singh (2003).

2.1.7.6 Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems (CABLS)

The Complex Adaptive Blended Learning Systems, called by CABLS created by Wang, Han, and Yang (2015) with an aim to put forward a

55 comprehensive view of what constitutes BL and how various components of BL work together over time to achieve an integrated whole (Wang, Han, & Yang, 2015) It consists of six key elements or six subsystems: the learner, the teacher, the technology, the content, the learning support, and the institution Figure 2.4 gives an illustration of six subsystems and their relationships:

Figure 2.4: The complex adaptive blended learning system

(Wang, Han, & Yang, 2015, p.383) The CABLS originated from complex adaptive systems theory which “has been widely used to gain an understanding into the complexity of dynamic and non- linear systems such as neural systems, ecologies, galaxies, and social systems” (Wang, Han, & Yang, 2015, p.382) One crucial capacity of such systems is maintaining a balance between “stability? and “turbulence”, resulting in dynamically stable, healthy and innovative systems (Wang, Han, & Yang, 2015).

In BL, this framework has been mainly employed to identify trends and gaps in other blended learning research (Ortner, 2020) such as the studies by Ortner (2021), Wang et al (2015) or Yeop, Wong and Noh (2016); however, it was also

56 used as “a tool to analyze an individual blended learning system so as to be sure to consider all inter-related factors of the system” (Ortner, 2020, p 65) Although, this framework has not been as widely used in BL research as the other frameworks such as Community of Inquiry by Garrison et al (2000), Theory of transactional distance (Moore, 1993), Technology Acceptance Model (David, 1993), etc., it is suitable for exploring the factors in blended environments that affect students’ learning The further demonstration of the framework as well as the explanation to its applicability in this study will be discussed further in the subsequent section of this study.

2.1.7.7 Discussions on blended theories and models

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A review of the literature was conducted to identify any prior research studies directly related to this research In other words, the researcher hopes to investigate the literature related to factors or predictors of students’ satisfaction, perceived learning or their outcomes in blended learning According to Arbaugh (2005), there were a number of researchers and practitioners who were concerned about identifying when and how blended learning instruction is working or not working, particularly in the delivery of college level courses Thanks to that, many relative factors are revealed Overall, the factors belong to five main categories including: student-related factors, teacher-related factors, design factors, institution factors and other factors (educational, monetary resources, and cultural factors). The sub-categories of each will be clarified as follows.

According to Kintu et al (2017), “Learners are important partners in any learning process and therefore, their backgrounds and characteristics affect their ability to effectively carry on with learning and being in blended learning.” (p.2). For this reason, student-related factor is an indispensable one that must be taken into consideration.

As reported by Garrison & Kanuka (2004), “face-to-face learning experience is more teacher-oriented, whereas the online learning experience is more cognitive or internally focused” (p.28), it is clear that there exists plenty of differences between face-to-face and online learning environments Due to the nature of blended learning is “thoughtful fusion of face-to-face and online learning experiences” (Garrison & Kanuka ,2004, p.5), blended courses may provide students with more flexibility in terms of time and space beyond the traditional fixed classes; however, at the same time, it requires students to get used to “working independently, making their own decisions, and taking responsibility for their own learning” (Marsh, 2012, p.12) This is easy to understand because of the fact that in blended environments, teacher regulation of the learning process is reduced (Fryer & Bovee, 2016; Zhu et al., 2016).

As a result, blended learning requires more self-regulated skills for individuals to be successful (Peverly, Brobst, Graham, & Shaw, 2003).

So far, many researchers have made effort to define the term “self- regulation” Knowles (1975) defined self-regulated learning as “a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating goals, identifying human and material resources, choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes” (p 18) Similarly, Zimmerman (1989a) gave his conception of self- regulated learners as “metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning process” (p 4) In line with these researchers, Pintrich (2005) defined self-regulation in a more detailed way as a term used to describe a process initiated by students in an effort to control their educational functioning in four various areas The first area is (meta)cognitive area, representing the (meta)cognitive strategies students use to learn or perform the task efficiently.

To make it clear, the self-regulated learners often have task-specific learning goals, and they try their best to apply applicable strategies to achieve those goals The second is motivational area, containing strategies employed by students to optimize their motivations and emotional reactions The third is behavioral area, demonstrating students’ effort to persist and seek assistance as necessary The fourth is contextual area, consisting of all students’ activities to manage and take control of the learning environments, both in classroom and online environment.

Acknowledging the differences between various learning environments (traditional versus online and blended learning), Barnard et al (2009) developed the online self-regulated learning Questionnaire based on six subscales: environment structuring, goal setting, time management, help-seeking, task strategies, and self- evaluation Goal orientation or goal setting is students’ capacity to set clear goals or orientation towards a course (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie, 1991). Environment-structuring is understood as environment management skills (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1986) or the ability to “structure their own physical learning environment, whether at home or elsewhere” (Lynch& Dembo, 2004, p 4).

Time management is the ability to use the study time more effectively (Zimmerman, Greenberg, & Weinstein, 1994) which comprises “scheduling, planning, and managing one’s study time” (Chen, 2002, p 14) Help-seeking is a valuable strategy enabling students to seek assistance from other students or instructors despite the time or space isolation sometimes Kirmizi (2013) defined self-evaluation as “one of the crucial phases in which individuals evaluate their personal effectiveness in relation to a specific learning task” (p.164).

Research have proved that self-regulation is a critical variable in education because it has close relationship with student performance and success (Saba, 2012; Zhu et al., 2016) and high-achievers are those employing more self-regulation strategies during their process (Zimmerman & Martinez-Ponz, 1986) When it comes to online and blended learning, Barnard et al supposed that “these self- regulatory learning skills will play an even more important role in learning in the online environment.” (p.1) The results from numerous studies reconfirmed their assumption.

Using both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies for students in Australia, Zhu et al (2016) identified the strong relationship between students’ self-control as well as self-regulated learning skills and their learning outcome in a blended course Data collected from survey questionnaires, students’ weekly reports, and participants’ posts on the online forums and the final-course grades helped the researcher draw a conclusion that participants who report higher level of control capacity and self-regulated learning achieved better learning outcomes This conclusion is in consonance with the research by Tsai et al (2011) when they carried out their experimental research with a group using extra instruction in self- regulated strategies and another group not using it Also, on the way to discover the factors contributing to effective teaching and learning in a blended environment, Nakayama et al (2015) stated that two factors should be taken into consideration are the amount of independent studying and student note taking practices This study results suggest that students must be self-driven and self-disciplined to some extent to successfully finish the tasks given by their teachers.

Another study was conducted by Kintu et al (2017) with a view to investigating the effectiveness of a blended learning environment by analyzing the relationship between student characteristics/background, design features and learning outcomes It indicated that self-regulation among other learner characteristics was a significant predictor of learner satisfaction in blended courses.

In addition, from their own experiences of teaching in blended environments, Aycock at al (2002) confirmed that the most challenge to the teachers are not dealing with those having problems with technology but indeed with those not taking responsibility for their own course and having poor time management skills. This is approved by Selim (2007) supposing that time management skills, along with computer skills are the essential ones for the efficiency of e-learning and blended learning To support this, Lopez-Pérez et al (2013) carried out an experimental research with a control group who did not complete the additional activities online and one experimental group who spent additional time on their online studies The result revealed higher marks from the experimental group than the control group although they had the same background, attendance and subject matter preference The former got an average mark of 8.27 and the latter got 6.99 out of 10 points This is consistent with Francis and Shannon's (2013) study on university students in an Australia University They used student logins as a time measurement, and they indicated a positive relationship between the amount of time students spent on their online activities and their academic outcomes The more time they spent on doing online materials, the better they performed This result has reconfirmed that student’s time management skill to allocate a balanced time to both onsite classrooms and supplementary additional online activities plays a very important role in determining students’ success in blended learning.

In the field of e-learning in general and blended learning in particular, numerous studies have documented justification of the influence of students’ computer competence in the success of e-blended course Computer experience is even considered to be a prerequisite for success in Web-based learning (Hong, 2002). Dutton et al (2002) insisted that it is necessary for student to gain certain level of

72 computer competence to persist in online environment This viewpoint is in agreement with Piotrowski and Vadonovich (2000) supposing that a lack of computer expertise may lead to students’ anxiety to work in e-learning environment In other cases, with inadequate computer skills, students may be exposed to frustration working collaboratively using computer-mediated communication (Sturgill, Martin, and Gay, 1999).

Discussing about the relationship between computer competence and student achievement in online courses, Lim (2001) confirmed that computer competence is a statistically predictor of student outcome Not only the students’ outcome but also their satisfaction is affected as a result of technical difficulties as well as ambiguous course instruction (Hara & Kling, 2001) Hong and Samimy (2010) conducted research on 244 undergraduate EFL students and found that those with higher computer literacy skills were more likely to have a positive view of CALL in general, and blended learning in particular, which in turns improved their study results On the contrary, students lacking technological skills or being computer-inexperienced were often fearful of using technology in their learning (Coryell & Chlup, 2007) Piccciano and Seaman (2007) even emphasized that learner success in e-blended learning heavily relies on students’ experience in Internet and computer applications This viewpoint achieved agreement from Lin and Vassar (2009) who confirmed the role of students’ capacity to cope with technical problems and technical skills in computer operations and internet navigation.

As defined, blended learning is “the combination of traditional face-to-face and technology-mediated learning” (Graham et al., 2013, p.4), computer literacy will definitely play an indispensable role in the course effectiveness as stated in Tang and Chaw (2016): “It is quite clear that to be digitally literate, a very basic requirement is possessing the skills to use digital technology” (p 62) This conclusion has been confirmed by results from a number of empirical studies in different contexts For instance, Lim and Morris (2009), when trying to identify which instructional factors, learner variables, etc in blended learning environment

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In order to understand the impacts of different factors on students’ learning in this blended environment, it is crucial to clarify what students are expected to learn in the new teaching approach It is not a coincidence that scholars all over the

83 world are increasingly interested in BL and BL is even “perceived to be a means to combine the best of face-to-face and online learning” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.4) According to Thorne (2016), “Blended learning represents a very real steps towards doing it differently” (p.20) and BL is expected to provide “more engaged learning experiences” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.4) Unlike the other methods,

BL is considered as “a design approach whereby both face-to-face and online learning are made better by the presence of the other- offers the possibility pf recapturing the traditional values of higher education while meeting the demands and needs of the twenty-first century” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.5) Therefore, the transformation of teaching and learning as well as emergence of new learning expectations is inevitable in BL course with the integration of technology.

First of all, literature has pointed out that students in the blended courses are expected to develop their active and reflective learning thanks to the technological affordances provided by blended courses BL can facilitate students’ active learning by providing them with flexibility to study at their convenience For example, they can study at their free time, learn from home and at their own pace (Chew, 2009; Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013); Neumeier, 2005) In addition, students are allowed to choose what and how to study The integration of online learning components gives students a wide range of self-practice materials to choose from to suit their different learning conditions and styles Moreover, students can also easily self-study with the support of a variety of learning tools such as digital recorder, digital camera, etc. Students also have opportunities to regularly practice thanks to available online quizzes which enable students to “do it until you get it right” and “take quizzes as many times as required to master the material” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.133). Simultaneously, they can review the materials whenever they want (Moskal & Cavanagh, 2013) Last but not least, instead of merely involving in a mid-term and final examinations, students can get access to frequent feedback (Twigg, 2003) thanks to the benefits of web-based assessment tools such as automatic feedback, self- assessments, online portfolio or auto-generated assessment on the Learning Management System These quizzes help to “motivate students to keep current with

84 the course material, as well as aid study structure and encourage more time spent on the task at hand” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.133) By dint of this, they can gain a more thorough understanding of their learning, reflect, and take better control of their own learning Not only is students’ active learning promoted in BL, but their reflective capacities are also enhanced due to the integration of online learning This is supported by many different researchers, for example, Joosten et al (2013) claimed that the integration of online content provided students with sufficient amount of time to reflect; as a result, their understanding of learning materials can be increased Supporting this viewpoint, Garrison and Vaughan (2008) supposed that while face-to-face classroom has its strengths “in its spontaneity, which reinforces education as a social activity”, “It is a challenge to provide the time for students to reflect and offer a considered opinion” (p.28) On the contrary, “the strength of online learning is the opportunity for reflection and rigor” (p.28) in that students can spend more time to compose a message and communicate in a clear and concise manner so that others can read and respond to.

Secondly, it is expected that students learning in a blended course can develop their communicative and collaborative skills better than their counterparts in a traditional class or an online one As claimed by Garrison and Vaughan (2008), blended learning could provide students with multidimensional communication with both face-to-face verbal and online text communication, which have enormous potential to complement each other Also, they supposed that “Blended learning communities open up new learning relationships that can extend beyond the limited time of the class and course.” (p.27) This is supported by many other researchers who reached a consensus that BL gave students more opportunities to interact with their teachers and other students (Chew, 2009; Joosten et al., 2013; Reinders, 2012; Taylor & Newton, 2013; Vaughan et al., 2013) First of all, BL helps to create and sustain an educational community To be more specific, face-to-face interaction plays a significant role in the early stages of community building and creating trust to support collaborative learning (Garrison and Vaughan, 2008) In other words, it can establish a sense of community and connectedness more quickly, which will be

85 then transferred to an online context (Rocco, 1996) with students feeling more emotionally secure in open, purposeful discourse Subsequently, by virtue of the inclusion of online component, “the online communities can extend the opportunity for both sustained and flexible communication” (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008, p.28). The addition of both synchronous and asynchronous communication tools to the traditional way of communication in face- to- face class can improve and enhance students’ interactive and collaborative learning beyond face-to- face classes (Pop & Slev, 2012) The integration of online environment helps to provide the condition for “free and open dialogue, critical debate, negotiation and agreement- the hallmark of higher education” (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004) because expressing disagreement in person is much harder for fear of offending their peer in face-to- face context (Garrison and Vaughan, 2008) Besides, thanks to the expansion of time, the Internet discussion forums can be more thoughtful, reasoned and supported by evidential sources (Meyer, 2003) Furthermore, online interaction seems to be less threatening to many students, especially shy students With the thoughtful integration of both online and offline components, the educational possibilities provided by BL can be multiplied to suit different learning styles For example, on the contrary to rich dynamic, fast-paced, spontaneous verbal communication in face-to-face learning environment, online learning environment provided students with written form of communication and allows students to reflect before composing text in asynchronous communication (Pop & Slev, 2012; Reinders, 2012) This results in students’ increasing confidence to interact with their teachers and friends Last but not least, because of the fact that in BL, online learning components can be utilized to facilitate students’ self-study of language knowledge and skills (Launer, 2010), more face-to-face class time can be made use of to enhance students’ interactive and collaborative learning by letting students get involved in pair work and group work to practice using English for real communication for language output (Liang & Bonk, 2009) Students can also used class time to demonstrate their understanding of the knowledge about the target language that they have self-studied at home, and both teachers and students can get involved in class discussions to resolve any emerging issues (Joosten et al., 2013).

In summary, because BL is considered as “an approach and design that merges the best of traditional and web-based learning experiences” (Garrison and Vaughan, 2008, p.8), it is expected that this new teaching method should bring distinct benefits to students’ learning compared to the traditional face- to- face and online classes In other words, in addition to the academic progresses, students are expected to develop their active, reflective learning capabilities as well as communicative and collaborative skills better thanks to the inclusion of the technology.

2.4 Research trends in Blended learning

2.4.1 Research trends in Blended learning all over the world

Since the term “blended learning” was initiated in November 2002 by a small group of colleagues attending the Annual Sloan-C Conference on Online Learning in Orlando, Florida (Picciano et at., 2013), it has gained rapid popularity and it was even predicted to “emerge as the predominant model of the future” (Watson, 2008, p.3) Due to its fast-growing expansion and development, “voices enter the conversation in increasing numbers and diversity” (Halverson, Graham, Spring, Drysdale, & Henrie, 2014) As a result, there is a large existing body of research concerning blended learning, which makes it impossible for the researcher to make a sufficient list of all the studies that have been conducted in the last two decades. Therefore, to facilitate the detection of the research gaps in previous studies which this study endeavors to fill in, the researcher decided to base on some outstanding studies which synthesized the current research trends as well as the focus of BL research all over the world reflected in scholarly articles, books, books chapters, or dissertations, etc.

To begin, in 2012, Halverson, Graham, Spring and Drysdale conducted research named “An analysis of high impact scholarship and publication trends in blended learning”, which determined the most frequently cited books, book chapters, journals and articles on this field, the most influential scholars and other emerging trends in blended learning scholarship during the years 2000-2011 By using the citations from Google Scholar with the support of Harzing’s Publish or Perish software and in-depth thematic analysis of top cited publications, this

87 research helped identify 50 most frequently cited articles, 25 most frequently cited book chapters, 10 most frequently cited books, the most impactful authors and journals, context of blended learning being studied Also, some key themes of BL research were revealed including the transformative potential of BL, importance of determining how to maximize the benefits of the two modalities, face-to-face and online learning, pedagogy and student learning outcome More importantly, this research identified the research gap that needed fulfilling including the lack of BL research in K-12 environments, lack of theoretical coherence among BL research and lack of research that look more specifically at pedagogy and design More importantly, this study emphasized that most of BL research were not empirical in nature, but rather focused on definitions, models, and the potential of BL.

To clarify the current trends in this new approach, one year later, Drysdale, Graham, Spring and Halverson (2013) continued to do another research called “An analysis of research trends in dissertations and theses studying blended learning”. While their first study focused on books, book chapters, journals, this study focused on 205 doctoral dissertations and master’s theses written through 2011 to April

2012 and found on the ProQuest Dissertation and Thesis Database (ProQuest) that addressed BL The research made its contributions to identify the outstanding trends in BL in terms of demography, methodology used and some popular theoretical frameworks in BL (See Appendix F) Noticeably, with regard to the topical trends, this research pointed out nine primary topics being explored in BL, which laid the foundation for other similar research in the following period consisting of dispositions, instructional design, interaction, comparison, demographics, technology, professional development, and others The sub-topics were also clearly categorized in this study Similar to their research in 2012, the research also pinpointed some research gulfs such as lack of theoretical foundations unique for

BL research, lack of research in all aspects of K-12 blended learning environment, insufficient research to discover what design features could lead to greater student motivation and engagement and a need for more research related to institutional policy and adoption issues: professional development and faculty dispositions regarding the implementation of BL

However, the limitation of this review is that it mainly focused on doctoral dissertations and masters’ theses, ignoring the conversations in journals, articles and other sources To compensate for this, Halverson, Graham, Spring, Drysdale, and Henrie (2014) conducted research “A thematic analysis of the most highly cited scholarship in the first decade of blended learning research” to uncover the methodologies, research questions, and theoretical frameworks, implications in published BL during the years 2002-2011 Similar to the research conducted by Drysdale, Graham, Spring and Halverson (2013), this article summarized both the methodological trends and the topical trends of research in BL of this period reflected in 60 most impactful articles and 25 most impactful book chapters. However, instead of 9 main topics mentioned in previous research, one more topical trend (exploration ranking the third) was discovered Some research gaps were disclosed, which was of great benefits to future researchers They included a dearth of teacher perspectives on BL, a need for BL research to investigate the features of the learning environment which can be designed to find efficiencies for various learner types and preferences, content areas, instructor styles and preferences, etc., a lack of explain model research to explain the connections between BL and observed results Finally, there were no cohesive theoretical conversations, which required more attention to be paid to investigate current proposed theory and develop new theoretical work in BL.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY cĂcecsieieieieree 100 3.1 Research coi 2n

The socio-cultural context of this SfUy 5c 55+ SxSEsreerererrsrrrre 100 3.1.2 Research vn

This part is dedicated to summarizing and highlighting the key features of the socio-cultural context of this study which has been clarified in great details in section 1.2.1 It is of great value to contextualize this research, which helps to distinguish it from numerous studies elsewhere.

To be more specific, in terms of cultural context, this study was conducted in Vietnam whose culture is characterized by five key features mentioned by Hofstede et al (2010) and reconfirmed by other scholars including large-power-distance, a highly collectivistic society, both feminine and masculine society, high uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, and a restraint culture These cultural characteristics are clearly reflected in education For example, firstly, teachers are regarded as the knowledge transmitter and has the highest status in class Students often comply with their teachers and find it hard to initiate a conversation with their teachers Secondly, most of the students are neither willing to speak up in response to their teachers in front of the class nor ready to speak in larger groups or work

100 with a group of “relative strangers” Vietnamese students tend to harmonize themselves in solidarity to reach consensus in debates rather than argue or voice their disagreement However, at the same time, competitive learning, especially in exams is emphasized; as a result, exam-pressure is popular among students. Besides, Vietnamese students seem to have low tolerance for mistakes and ambiguous situations, leading to the fact that they seem to be more dependent on their teachers than the western counterparts because teachers are often considered as a reliable source of knowledge Also, only when they make sure of their answers, do they express their viewpoints, which results in their reservedness to communicate with teachers in class Furthermore, the long-term orientation culture often incites the students to attribute their failure in the exam to their lack of efforts and increases their exam-pressure Last but not least, Vietnamese students’ behaviors are often restrained by the social norms, and they are expected to adhere to strict rules set by their teachers.

With regard to social context, the Vietnamese temporary social context seems to be highly supportive of the implementation of BL This originates from the government’s increasing emphasis on English competence under the influence of globalization Also, it derives from the urgent need to implement ICT in all levels of education to move away from existing traditional form of teaching and learning to improve Vietnamese people’s English proficiency, especially their communicative capacity which has been identified and advocated by authorities and language educational practitioners (Nunan, 2003; Vietnamese Government, 2008).

The study was conducted in a state university in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, and it can be referred to as a VNUni It is a prestigious university in Vietnam in linguistics, international studies and related social sciences and humanities It ranks top 1 university in Vietnam and top 1000 world universities (QS World University Ranking, 2019) In this university, students have different majors; however, English language is considered as one of the mandatory second languages for all non-English major students.

This university is chosen because it is the place where the researcher has been working for more than 10 years; therefore, undertaking research in a familiar place can bring a number of benefits to the researcher regarding facilitating access to the research site as well as student participants, and establishing good rapport and communication with the participants, which in turns enhances the research quality (Marshall & Rossman, 2014).

Besides, this university is still at an early stage of implementing BL In fact, at the Faculty of English in this university, BL has been conducted and integrated into several language practice subjects since 2018 and initially showed positive results (Ngoc, 2019) During these courses, teachers still give lectures on four language skills as scheduled in class and the online learning part is built on Language Management System (LMS) to help students to self-study outside class hours They are often required to complete all homework and assignments in four skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing before class time.

Based on the categorization of BL by Bonk and Graham (2012) mentioned in section 2.1.2, in my current research, BL is applied at a course level, where the English general course is taught via both online and offline components The language input is provided both in face-to-face class and on Learning Management System and each component is a part of the course Based on the primary purpose of the blend, it can be regarded as enhancing blend because it allows incremental changes to pedagogy, but it does not create radical change in the way teaching and learning occurs For example, students are still expected to study mainly in class and spend time revising the lesson online as well as do some online exercises to practice their learnt knowledge After that, they may bring some of their knowledge online to class for some offline discussion It has not brought radical transformation of pedagogy as in transforming blends.

In this study, the blended course is offered to non-English major students. The time distribution for face-to-face class and online learning is 120 and 30 periods respectively The online exercises and practices on the Learning Management System (LMS) are assigned to students every two weeks (at week 2, 4,

6, 8, 10, and 12) To be more detailed, the description of English blended course in the VNUn1 is illustrated in Table 3.1

Table 3.1 Description of English blended course in the VUni

Face-to-face elements Online elements

Activities Weekly lectures and language practice Exercises and

30 sessions x 4 periods — 2 sessions/week language practice in 4 skills: Listening, speaking, reading, writing.

Tools Computer, projector, CD player, course book LMS

Achievement | 2 achievement tests in 2 skills: listening & | Online tests speaking Each test accounts for 10% of total | achievement quiz marks average mark:

Final test e The final test covers 4 skills, and it accounts for 60% of the total marks. e Students are required to attend at least 80% of contact hours at class and complete and submit at least 50% of the tasks assigned in online course to be eligible for attending the final exam. e Besides, students’ participation including lesson preparation and contribution occupies 10% of the total mark.

In terms of the online learning component of the course, a group of EFL teachers at this university is selected to work together in order to set out content requirements and create the actual content based on the topics of the textbooks used in face-to-face class After that, the LMS is designed by the service provider to fit the required content.

Prior to their real teaching in BL mode, teachers were provided with opportunities to participate in several training sessions on modern English teaching and learning methods held by National Geographic Learning, Cengage Learning (USA) In these sessions, teachers were shared with some innovative strategies to

103 attract students when teaching English skills, some tips to make language learning more enjoyable through the use of technology that combines teaching skills to encourage students to communicate and collaborate during class.

Research participant 1h

This study used qualitative research (see section 3.3.1) with an aim to provide an insight into students’ perceptions of the current blended course, from which some contributing and hindering factors can be revealed In terms of sample size, as stated by Patton (2015), there has been no consensus over specific sample size rules because “Sample size depends on what you want to know, the purpose of the inquiry, what’s at stake, what will be useful, what will have credibility, and what can be done with the available time and resources” (p.311) However, according to Mason (2010) who has analyzed 560 PhD dissertations using qualitative interviews, the most common sample size among these was between 20 and 30 Therefore, based on my available time and resources, I decided to choose a sample of 20 first year students to be the participants of this study In fact, these students were chosen from the total 742 students attending the blended course in the first semester of 2019-2020 school year To be more specific, before conducting this research, the researcher had done another research named “Students’ perspectives on the implementation of a blended general English course in a university of Vietnam” (Hien, 2019) in the same context This study involved 104 first year students who were invited to take part in quantitative research to explore their perceptions of the key components of a blended English course Due to the fact that this study was carried out in the same year, and in the same context with the current study, the questionnaire was also employed as a recruiting tool to invite the participants to participate in the semi-structured interviews After students had completed the questionnaire, an invitation was sent to all of them, among whom 33 students volunteered to participate in the in-depth interview concerning the factors affecting their study in this blended course By using purposeful sampling technique as the major technique of sampling, the final 20 students were chosen.

Purposeful sampling was employed to select the participants because “the logic and power of purposeful sampling lie in selecting information-rich cases for

104 study in depth Information- rich cases are those from which one can learn a great deal about issues of central importance to the purpose of inquiry” (Patton, 2002, p.230) The sampling strategy for purposeful sampling in this study was the combination of criterion sampling and maximum variation sampling, which were two of the strategies recommended by Patton (2002) The reason behind this choice of criterion strategy was that in order to act as information-rich cases, all the interviewees must meet the predetermined criteria In other words, they themselves must be the direct participants in this English blended course Besides, maximum variation sampling strategy was needed because the participants were expected to be as different as possible from others so that the factors affecting their learning in the English blended course could be as fully revealed as possible Because of this, the participants were chosen using some dimensions including gender, English proficiency, years of learning English, technological competence, majors, classes, experiences with blended learning, place of living before entering the high schools because based on the literature review and practical experiences, these dimensions may have certain effects on students’ perceptions of the factors affecting their learning in a blended course For example, students learning in different classes may have different teachers with various teaching methods and receive different learning support Therefore, some factors which may be regarded as hindering ones for students in this class may not be the barrier to students in another class The detailed description of the participants based on these dimensions is illustrated in the table 3.2 below:

Table 3.2 Description of semi-structured interview participants

English proficiency 8 students are at intermediate level, 12 students are at pre-intermediate level.

15 students have learnt English for more than 10 years.

5 students have learnt English for 7 years Interestingly, despite having a long time of learning English, some students expressed that they did not really take English seriously until they entered the secondary school (student No 14) or even the university (student No 4).

Majors 5 students come from Japanese major, 3 from

Korean, 3 from Chinese, 5 from French, 4 from German major

Classes Students are learning in different classes ranging from Al to A17

Experiences with 12 students have not heard about blended learning blended learning 6 students have heard about BL but do not really experience it

2 students have really learnt in BL Place of _ living before entering the high schools

10 students (Students 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 11,14,16,17,18) come from the city, mainly Hanoi, and the others from the city of Lang Son, Dien Bien, Ninh Binh, Tuyen Quang, etc Nine of the participants (students No 1, 6,

7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 19,20) are from the countryside of HaNam, Hung Yen, Bac Ninh, Hai Duong, Thanh Hoa,etc Only student No 8 comes from the mountainous area of Phu Tho province

Research paradigm ccssesesessssssssssssssescsesesssesesnsesesesscscscscseseseseensusseeeeseseasasasenenees 106

To begin with, in terms of research paradigm or philosophical worldview, Creswell (2009) supposed that “Although philosophical ideas remain largely hidden in research (Slife & Williams, 1995), they still influence the practice of research and need to be identified.” (p.5) According to Creswell and Creswell (2018), the term philosophical worldview assumptions, or worldview, also adopted many different names; however, in this study, the term “paradigm” initiated by Guba and Lincoln (1994) was used and understood as “a basic system or worldview that

106 guides the investigator, not only in choices of method but also in ontological and epistemological fundamental ways” (p 105).

To be more specific, Creswell and Poth (2016) clarified that “paradigms” can be defined in reference to ontology (“what is the nature of reality?”), epistemology (“what counts as knowledge? How are knowledge claims justified? What is the relationship between the researcher and that being researched?”), axiology (“what is the role of values?”) and methodology (“What is the process of research? What is the language of research?) According to Creswell and Creswell (2018), based on these criteria, there are four main types of paradigms that are widely discussed in the literature: post positivism, constructivism, transformative, and pragmatism.

With a goal to achieve the research aims, this study applied the constructivist paradigm which was described by Denzin and Lincoln (2000a) as “a relativist ontology, a subjectivist epistemology, and a naturalistic set of methodological procedures” (p.21) The reasons for choosing this research paradigm were clarified as followed based on four key components of a constructivist paradigm as defined by Creswell and Poth (2016).

In terms of ontological issues (the nature of reality), in this study, the researcher aimed at understanding the factors affecting students’ learning from their own perspectives in a blended course in the context of Vietnam Therefore, the reality was relativist because each student had their own interpretation of the blended course as well as the facilitating and hindering factors to their study As a result, there were multiple realities instead of only one reality involved in the research because it was seen through many different viewpoints of different students Accordingly, various perspectives as well as various themes were expected to be developed in the findings.

With reference to epistemology (what counts as knowledge and how knowledge claims are justified, what is the relationship between the researcher and that being researched?), each individual student developed their own subjective meanings of their experiences of the blended course The researcher interacted with the student participants through semi-structured interviews, which were interpretive

107 in nature and centered on exploring students’ perceptions of the factors affecting their learning in a blended English course During the interview, the interviewer and the interviewees may have had an influence on each other in an interactive process and sometimes, the researcher’s perspective may have had certain effect on the research.

Concerning axiology (the role of values in research), it is fully acknowledged that the current research may be value-laden in the nature of information, and biases may emerge in relation to the researcher’s role in the study context For example, in this research, the researcher was an insider researcher because the study was conducted in her own university Therefore, she may encounter some risks and tensions, leading to some possible biases during the interviews, for example, role duality of both a researcher and a teacher To overcome these, Creswell and Poth (2016) suggested that “researchers “position themselves” by identifying their

“positionality” in relation to the context and setting of the research” (p.55)

Regarding methodology (the process of research), this research employed inductive logic approach, which is suitable for interpreting students’ perceptions towards the facilitating and hindering factors affecting their learning in a blended course in the context of Vietnam The meanings emerging from the participants’ perceptions could be categorized in themes to allow the researcher to get an insight of the influencing factors in current blended course Details of the study context were provided, and emerging design was applied For instance, the interview questions could be changed in the middle of the study, or some modifications may be made to data collection strategy to suit the new questions.

Many studies have demonstrated that qualitative research approach is gaining increasing popularity among researchers in social science fields (Longhofer, Floersch, & Hoy, 2012; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) Creswell (2003) once defined qualitative research as an “inquiry process of understanding based on distinct methodological traditions of inquiry that explore a social or human problem The

108 researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting” (p 15).

The qualitative approach was adopted in this study because this study seemed to have nearly all of the distinctive features of a qualitative research which were synthesized from the studies by different researchers (LeCompte & Schensul, 1999; Hatch, 2002; Marshall & Rossman, 2015; Ravitch & Mittenfelner Carl, 2006, cited in Creswell & Poth (2016) First of all, this research was conducted in a natural setting in which students had just participated in a real and natural English blended course in Vietnam Secondly, in this study, the researcher played the role of a key instrument by designing the data collection instruments and collecting the data herself from multiple methods such as interviews and document analysis. Thirdly, each student held their own view of the blended course as well as the facilitating and hindering factors to their learning in this course depending on their own personal and social factors; therefore, the findings reflected participants’ multiple perspectives and meanings Fourthly, this study was context-dependent because Vietnam is a country deeply influenced by Confucianism, which distinguishes this study from those conducted in other Western-culture contexts. Last but not least, emergent design was employed because the research questions and the interview questions were changed and modified during the process of collecting data to learn more about the issues from the students’ perspectives In short, this study fits well with the characteristics of a qualitative study.

In addition, based on the situation appropriate for employing a qualitative data synthesized by Creswell and Poth (2016), the qualitative research approach proves to be the optimum choice for this study First of all, this study aimed at gaining a complex, detailed understanding of Vietnamese students’ perceptions of the factors influencing their learning in a blended course However, through an in-depth review of the literature, it is revealed that there are still limited studies made in Vietnam with reference to BL: “In Vietnam, little is known about blended learning” (Tue,

2015, p.3) For that reason, this issue needs to be explored and it is impossible to use pre-determined information from the literature or depend on results from other

109 research studies because the majority of the studies were done in the western countries, whose culture were far different from an Eastern country like Vietnam. Furthermore, this problem is not easily measured; therefore, only by talking directly with people through interview, can details be established Secondly, students do not normally have many opportunities to raise their voice although they are the people who directly experience the BL implementation; however, in a qualitative research, students are empowered to share their stories, and to make their voices heard by the teachers, the researchers and the policymakers Thirdly, there seems to be a lack of fit between quantitative measures and the problem investigated Using quantitative design is also possible; however, it does “not tell us about the processes that people experience, why they responded as they did, the context in which they responded, and their deeper thoughts and behaviors that governed their responses” (Creswell & Poth, 2016, p.84) Finally, as mentioned above, there seem to be inadequate existing theories that can capture the complexity of the problem, which is the factors affecting students’ learning in the context of Vietnam because they are context dependent As a consequence, hopefully, this study will contribute to the existing theories to address the gap.

Among the six most commonly used approaches to doing qualitative research suggested by Merriam and Tisdell (2015), the basic qualitative research was employed as the research design of this study because as stated by Merriam and Tisdell (2015), the overall purpose of a basic qualitative research is to “understand how people make sense of their lives and their experiences” (p.23), which fits well with this study This research aims at understanding how students perceive the contributing and hindering factors to their learning in a blended English course. Besides, this study does not belong to other types of qualitative research as mentioned by Merriam and Tisdell (2015) including phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, narrative analysis, and critical qualitative research.

3.3.2 Analytical framework used in the present study

Among the frameworks reviewed in the literature, the Complex Adaptive Blended Systems Framework was chosen to be the analytical framework of this

110 study because it enabled the researcher to answer the research questions as based on this framework, the impact of each subsystem of the blended course on students’ learning could be revealed From the results, the aspects of each subsystem which were perceived to have positive effect on students’ learning (their knowledge, skills and attitudes) helped to answer the first research question about the facilitating factors On the contrary, those aspects perceived to negatively affect students’ learning will help to disclose the hindering factors in the blended environment.

Secondly, this framework seemed to fully mention the key factors affecting blended learning implementation that have been reviewed in the literature (Refer to section 2.2.), for example, the students, teachers, course design and technology.

Trustworthiness Of the Stud 11

Trustworthiness is defined by Pilot and Beck (2014) as the degree of confidence in data, interpretation and methods used to ensure the quality of a study. (Polit & Beck, 2014, as cited in Connelly, 2016) Trustworthiness can be demonstrated in qualitative research based on four criteria: credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba, 1985, as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).

With regard to credibility, two strategies were employed by the researcher in this study to promote it First of all, according to Patton (2015, as cited in Merriam

& Tisdell, 2016), “Triangulation, in whatever form, increases credibility and quality by countering the concern (or accusation) that a study’s findings are simply an artifact of a single method, a single source, or a single investigator’s blinders” (p.674) It was used because it is considered as “a powerful strategy for increasing the credibility or internal validity” of research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p.245). According to Denzin (1978, as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015), there are four types of triangulations: method triangulation, data triangulation, investigator triangulation and theory triangulation In this study, the researcher used method triangulation and data triangulation by collecting data from both semi-structured interview and document analysis.

The second strategy used to ensure internal validity or credibility of the research is called member-checking “This is the single most important way of

138 ruling out the possibility of misinterpreting the meaning of what participants say and do and the perspective they have on what is going on, as well as being an important way of identifying your own biases and misunderstanding of what you observed” (Maxwell, 2013, pp 126-127, as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p.246) To carry out member-checking, the researcher provided each interviewee with their interview transcripts and excerpts from the transcripts translated in English to be quoted in the study for their verification They were also asked to review the study results to check whether the researcher’s interpretation accurately reflected their perceptions and experiences in a blended English course.

Transferability, or external validity, refers to “the extent to which the findings of one study can be applied to other situations” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p.253) However, unlike quantitative research in which statistical generalizability can be derived, in qualitative research, “the burden of proof lies less with the original investigator than with the person seeking to make an application elsewhere.” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, as cited in Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p.254). Due to this reason, in order to help the readers to be able determine the extent to which their situations match the research context and identify whether the findings can be transferable, the investigator needs to provide “sufficient descriptive data” to make transferability possible” (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015, p.254) To be more specific, in this study, the researcher gave a detailed description of the research context, the interviewees’ background as well as the methods and procedures of collecting and analyzing data.

As stated by Polit and Beck (2014), dependability is relevant to the stability of the data over time and over the conditions of the study In other words, a study of the BL course experienced by students must elicit similar data from time to time. However, because the conditions always change, Lincoln and Guba (2000) also suggested that an audit trail could be employed as a strategy to establish the dependability of a research According to Merriam and Tisdell (2015), an audit trail is “a detailed account of the methods, procedures, and decision points in carrying out the study” (p.259) Therefore, in this research, the researcher attempted to keep

139 a detailed record of the research process in a research journal such as data collection and analysis procedure as well as my reflections, my questions, or any decisions made regarding problems in collecting data, etc.

In terms of confirmability, which refers to “the degree findings are consistent and could be repeated” (Connelly, 2016), the author also took advantage of the audit trail of all the decisions made during the studying process.The researcher herself also asked a colleague who is also a teacher as well as a qualitative researcher to review these notes so that any unnecessary biases from one person’s perspective can be avoided.

Ethical considerations - - 5 S5 11912191 1E 9 101012171 ng ghen 140 3.10 Chapter SUMMATY 6 140 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ccc eeeseeeseeeeeeeeseneneneesenens 141 4.1 Contributing factors to students’ learning in the current a blended English course

Before conducting this research, the researcher obtained consent of her university to carry out this study in late 2016 During the process, she tried to ensure the participants’ rights and benefits by giving them rights of informed consent, confidentiality, as well as beneficence To protect the privacy of the participants, the researcher also compromised on the issue of anonymity right at the beginning of semi-structured interviews Moreover, each interviewee was also provided with a copy of his/her transcript, translated quotations used in this study and the interpretation of these quotations After reviewing these documents, if they felt uncomfortable with any information given, they could give their feedback to the researcher to delete it At the end of the data analysis, the researcher also shared with the participants the summary of the results to inform them of the study.

In this chapter, the researcher has explained clearly her philosophical worldview assumptions that lead her to the selection of qualitative method as a research design Also, the reasons for choosing Complex Adaptive Blended Systems Framework as a theoretical as well as an analytical framework to explore the factors affecting students’ learning in Vietnamese context were also presented. Besides, the researcher gave a detailed description of the data collection as well as data analysis procedure and clarified ethical issues, the role of the researcher, the strategies employed to maintain the trustworthiness of the study In the next chapter, the findings from this data analysis procedure will be presented.

This chapter presents the qualitative results collected from the semi- structured interviews and the document analysis Most of the data were gathered from the interviews with the students, except for the data about institutional policy were taken from both the document analysis and the interviews With a view to answering the two main research questions mentioned in chapter 1, the data collected will be analyzed in relation to six key components of the Complex Adaptive Blended Learning System (CABLS) framework including Learner, Teacher, Content, Technology, Learner support and Institution, from which some contributing as well as hindering factors to students’ learning in blended environment can emerge.

In order to facilitate the readers, this chapter will be divided into three main sections in alignment with two proposed research questions Section 4.1 will present the findings about contributing factors to students’ learning in the current English blended course Section 4.2 is reserved for the exploration of the hindering factors Sections 4.3 will summarize the research results that have been presented in this chapter For more details about the coding process for raw data from the semi-structured interviews, readers can refer to Appendix D.

4.1 Contributing factors to students’ learning in the current English blended course

The data collected from the semi-structured interviews and the document analysis disclosed some factors that contributed to students’ learning in this English blended course There were three main factors including students’ readiness for accommodation of BL, teachers’ active engagement in BL environment, and institution’s advocacy of BL implementation Each factor was clearly illustrated and supported with evidence from students’ interviews and document analysis.

4.1.1 Students’ readiness for accommodation of blended learning

4.1.1.1 Students’ positive perceptions of Blended learning

In general, participating students generally demonstrated rather positive perceptions towards their current English blended course in terms of its benefits to

141 their learning In general, most of the students indicated that BL with the integration of online component had positive impacts on their overall learning in different aspects Most of the students demonstrated their preference for BL over the traditional class and gave different explanations for this.

First of all, most of the students stated that the implementation of BL provided them with time for revision For instance, students supposed that the combination of both offline and online learning with the latter supplementing the former offered them an excellent opportunity to review the knowledge that their teachers transmitted to them in class For example, student No 9 and No 10 reached a consensus that BL motivated students’ activeness in practicing their learnt language skills: e I feel that if we just learn in the traditional method, we are very passive and that is insufficient especially with the skills that we need to practice more With blended learning, besides offline class, the website provided us with exercises in four skills, which was really supportive to my study” (Student No 9) e If we just learn theory in class, I will easily forget But in this course, when we have to do online exercises at home to practice the theory I have learnt in class, I will remember it longer (Student No 10)

Other students also mentioned the limitations of sole learning in face-to-face class due to time constraint As a consequence, the teachers could not explain in detail or answer all of the students’ questions (Student No 17) or sometimes students could not catch up with their teachers in class (Student No 18) Thanks to the combination of both online and offline components in a blended course, students seemed to feel more optimistic about their knowledge acquisition process: e In this blended course, we had more time on the website to reread and absorb the theory Or sometimes, we lost attention in class, but at home, we still had chance to review the knowledge (Student No 17) e When I learnt in the blended course, in the evening, all these contents were available on the website Then it also provided us with extra exercises to practice Therefore, I could revise the knowledge, which was really good for me (Student No 18)

Secondly, some students indicated that the supplementary online exercises with available keys was a plus point of BL that they really appreciated because it provided them an opportunity to self-check their own improvement and enhanced the effectiveness of their self- learning process: e After finishing the online homework, we could receive the keys immediately.

I feel that it is more effective than doing exercises in class because all the keys are provided, and I know where I am wrong and where I need to improve (Student No 18) e It helped me to practice more and get used to the exercises The website pointed out my mistakes It has got the keys, so I know where I am wrong and learn from it the next time (Student No 9)

Thirdly, many students supposed that the convenience as well as flexibility of BL regarding learning time and learning space was one of its advantages over the traditional face-to-face class Not only could students save time to travel to school (Students No 2, No 15), but they could also get access to available source of knowledge effortlessly, which also resulted in their preference for a blended course: e The most beneficial aspect of the online system is that every time I got access to it, I didn’t have to search for the exercises that we needed to complete I just logged in and all the exercises given by weeks were available on the system for me to do (Student No 1)

Fourthly, the participants students demonstrated their beliefs that this blended course could promote their learning motivation thanks to the addition of a totally new form of learning online to the familiar conventional one A sense of newness helped to remove boredom (student No 5) and stimulate students’ excitement and desire to learn: e Actually, this teaching and learning method is quite new compared with what

I used to learn at high school or other levels So, I felt more motivated to learn English I am an English lover, now I also have new form of learning, not to mention that I can improve my technological skills For all these reasons, I find that blended learning really useful.” (Student No 14)

Another student (Student No 15) added that this brand-new form of learning could also be beneficial to their mental health because the combination of both

143 online and offline components released their study burden and created a sense of relaxation compared to solely face-to-face class Besides, it also brought some advantages to their physical health by saving students’ time for studying instead of travelling on the roads.

Some other students attributed their increased motivation to increased time and effort that they were required to spend on the blended course It was the new requirements of a BL course that forced students to study regularly not only in class as in a traditional one but also at home on online learning platforms, which gradually added their impetus to learn: e Learning both online and offline required me to spend more time on English learning, both at home and in class So, my motivation to learn English was strengthened (Student No 6) e When I do the online exercises, I have to review all the knowledge that I have learnt in class As a result, my desire to learn English is increased much more than when there are no online exercises (Student No 18)

CONCLUSION Sàn re 235 5.1 Gv nh