Hybrid classes more in demand, study finds

A recent survey indicated students who want a more flexible schedule are looking for universities to offer hybrid courses.

Hybrid courses — a blend of online and face-to-face instruction — are rising in both demand and acceptance on college campuses, according to the survey conducted by Eduventures, a research and consulting company for higher education.

Marisa Michaud, senior analyst at Eduventures, said more than 20,000 current and prospective students were surveyed.

“We found there was a disconnect between the current level of supply of hybrid education and demand for hybrid delivery,” Michaud said.

She said the survey found 19 percent of current students are enrolled in hybrid courses, while 33 percent of prospective adult students are interested in hybrid courses.

These results indicate there aren’t a lot of providers of hybrid education, she said. Schools don’t really know how to market hybrid instruction, and students don’t really understand what hybrid means, she said.

At UNC, a small number of hybrid courses are offered.

Todd Zakrajsek, executive director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at UNC, wrote in an email that the University offers active hybrid courses in romance languages, mathematics and psychology.

“At UNC we tend to define hybrid or blended courses as courses that have replaced some portion of classroom time or lecture with online learning activities,” Zakrajsek said.

“If one is thinking through and re-designing a course to add online activities that include more student engagement, it is likely to make the course better.”

Laurie Cochenour, e-learning policy coordinator at UNC, said hybrid courses are beneficial for students if these courses are well-constructed.

“As with any new technology or new teaching strategy, it doesn’t work for every course,” she said.

The hybrid format works well for larger enrollment courses, she said, because they allow face-to-face lecture time to be used more effectively.

Amy Schwartz, a freshman business major at UNC, said hybrid classes would definitely be helpful, especially for students who have a hard time waking up for class.

She said classes that are completely online require more discipline to keep up with all of the work, while hybrid courses would give students more incentives to stay engaged.

Zakrajsek said experimentation with hybrid courses at UNC has been very limited so far, but the results suggest that most students in hybrid courses have performed as well as or better than students in traditional sections.

“Online course materials can offer students such advantages as immediate feedback on practice problems, personalized study plans and interactive simulations,” he said.

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