Effects of blended learning pedagogical practices on students’ motivation and autonomy for the teaching of short stories in upper secondary English

ABSTRACT

This research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of blended learning on academic achievements, motivation and learner autonomy. The scope of this research is the teaching of English through short stories. A quasi-experimental study was conducted among 116 upper secondary students and two different teaching pedagogies were utilised; a blended learning classroom for the experimental groups, and meanwhile conventional learning classroom for the control groups. The data for students’ academic achievement were collected from a post-test questionnaire, whereas data for motivation and learner autonomy were collected through sets of questionnaires adapted from the previous literature. The differences between the two groups were then analysed using the independent t-test. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference in their academic achievements however, there were positive effects on both learner autonomy and students’ motivation constructs in the blended learning compared to the conventional learning. The implication of this study is that blended learning is suitable to be implemented in secondary school English classes as long as there are sufficient monetary, equipment and technical supports.

KEYWORDS:

• Blended learning
• pedagogical practices
• students’ motivation
• students’ autonomy
• English subject

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kung-Teck Wong is an Assoc. Prof at Faculty of Education and Human Development, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI), Malaysia.

Dr. Gwo-Jen Hwang is currently a Chair Professor and Dean of College of Literal Arts and Social Sciences at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Pauline Swee Choo Goh is an Assoc. Prof. at the Faculty of Education and Human Development, Sultan Idris Education University (UPSI).

Siti Khadijah Mohd Arrif is an ambitious secondary English teacher currently teaching in MRSM FELDA, Malaysia.

ORCID

Kung-Teck Wong http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6661-9322