Students’ Blended Learning Course Experience Scale (BLCES): development and validation

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to develop a scale to measure students’ blended learning course experience. A total of 792 undergraduate students from Malaysia participated in this study. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was employed to evaluate the factor structure of the scale. As a result of EFA, three factors with 19 items that explained 68.06% of the total variance were obtained. The three factors are: course design, learning experience, and personal factors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to establish the structural validity of the scale, and item discrimination was conducted to validate the scale. The Cronbach’s coefficients (α) for the factors ranged from .71 to .95. The overall Cronbach’s coefficient (α) of the scale was .92, demonstrating a satisfactory level of reliability. The results showed that the developed scale is reliable and valid. Future implications for course designers and instructors are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Blended learning
• course design
• factor analysis
• higher education
• learning experience
• personal factors
• scale development

Acknowledgments

This project is supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. We would also like to thank Dr. Sanjaya Mishra, Education Specialist: eLearning, Commonwealth of Learning, for his valuable suggestions to improve this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kaushal Kumar Bhagat

Kaushal Kumar Bhagat is currently working as an assistant professor in the Centre for Educational Technology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Science Education at the National Taiwan Normal University in September 2016. He then served a two-year postdoctoral position at the Smart Learning Institute at Beijing Normal University. He has published several referred journal articles and book chapters. In 2015, Dr. Bhagat received NTNU International Outstanding Achievement Award. He was also awarded 2017 IEEE TCLT Young Researcher award. He is an associate editor of British Journal of Educational Technology and editor-in-chief of Contemporary Educational Technology. In 2020, he received APSCE Early Career Researcher Award (ECRA) from the Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education. His research area of interest includes online learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, flipped classroom, formative assessment and technology-enhanced learning.

Chia-Hui Cheng

Chia-Hui Cheng is a doctoral student in Graduate Institute of Science Education at the National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan.

Indira Koneru

Indira Koneru is an associate dean at the ICFAI Business School, India. Her research interest includes blended learning, instructional design, and open educational resources (OERs).

Fong Soon Fook

Fong Soon Fook is a Professor in Multimedia Education at the Faculty of Social Science & Humanities, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. His field of research includes learning designs, aptitude-treatment interactions and program evaluation.

Chun-Yen Chang

Chun-Yen Chang serves as National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) Chair Professor, Director of Science Education Center (NTNU), Professor of the Graduate Institute of Science Education and the Department of Earth Sciences (NTNU). His major research interests include science education, e-Learning, interdisciplinary science learning and science communication.