Educators are using digital platforms more and more alongside conventional classroom teaching. A study in the International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning has taken a look at the important question of whether or not this “blended” educational model enhances learning.
Blended online-offline education, sometimes referred to as smart education, combines face-to-face instruction with tools such as learning management systems, digital resources, and data-driven feedback. It was already being used prior to the covid pandemic, but in 2020 it became a critical part of educational life and since then has become embedded in education. It is flexible and holds the promise of personalised learning. However, systematic research into how students experience offline-online education has not kept pace with digital developments.
The research in IJCEELL identified 14 different factors that could shape the student learning experience. They grouped these into five broad dimensions: course environment and platform, course design, teacher characteristics, learner characteristics and social interaction. The factors included the reliability and usability of digital systems, the clarity and coherence of course structure, the responsiveness of teachers, the capacity of students for self-directed learning, and the quality of peer engagement.
Rather than treating these factors as separate variables, the researchers examined how they interact to give particular outcomes. As such, they used an interpretive structural model to find the hierarchical relationships. In practical terms, this approach can distinguish between foundational elements, intermediary influences, and the educational outcomes.
Their structural model has course content and resource infrastructure at its foundations. Teaching interaction and learner-related factors such as motivation and self-regulation then sit on top of these foundations. The layer above that is the learning outcomes, including satisfaction and performance. As one might expect, the model showed that student experience emerges from interconnected factors from the base to the top, rather than isolated inputs.
The framework demonstrated more than 95 per cent accuracy and performed better than earlier approaches that used static surveys or business-derived models where factors are all treated independently. Ultimately, it showed that investment in digital technology alone is unlikely to transform learning outcomes without close attention also being paid to course design and teacher development.
Fang, Y. and Hu, J. (2026) ‘Analysis of factors influencing student learning experience in the blended online-offline smart education model’, Int. J. Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, Vol. 36, No. 7, pp.23–34.
