Abstract:

This paper aims to explore factors affecting student’s satisfaction when the students participate in online learning activities of blended learning courses. The factors are considered in the aspect of the interaction between teachers and students, and the interaction among students. In the paper, we proposed a course model with many interactive activities via LMS Moodle. The students participated in the course in the form of face-to-face learning combined with video conference and implemented other learning activities such as discussions, homework, test and online assessment. We conducted a survey of 107 students by asking them a questionnaire, in which each question has 5 points on Likert scale with ranges from 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely). The questions helped to investigate the following factors: Interaction, Collaboration, Communication, Assessment, and Results. In addition, variables of the student’s background were considered such as core competencies, online spending times. The results showed that the students were excited and felt very comfortable when they implemented learning activities. And we also found that the interaction, collaboration, and assessment could become good predictors of the student’s satisfaction.

UET is a public four-year university specializing in technology. Each year, the university provides 550 specialized courses for about 2500 students. In recent years, UET has been more interested in blended learning classes. There were about 442 courses in the Information Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications (approximately 20% of the total courses), in which we applied the teaching/learning process in the form of blended learning. Although there were many difficulties in the application process, the initial results proved that the blended learning approach could be expanded in all other courses of the University. Currently, in some new courses, we have just only used some supporting tools for teaching activities such as updating content in textbooks, handouts and slides, and several discussion forums. To promote the implementation of effective blended learning courses, we designed some courses as samples in order to provide many interactive online learning activities. At the end of the course, the evaluation of results was used as a foundation for the replication of the model in the future.

The purposes of this study are the followings: (1) Designing a model of blended learning course with many interactive activities between teachers and students, and among students; (2) Identifying the factors affecting the level of student’s satisfaction with group activities; (3) Evaluating the level of the satisfaction of students who participate in online learning activities in blended learning courses.

This study also tries to answer the following questions: (1) Whether the factors such as Interaction, Collaboration, Assessment, Technology and Results are good predictors of the student’s satisfaction with learning activities in blended learning course or not? (2) Is there a relationship among these factors in the assessment of student’s satisfaction with the learning activities? (3) How does student’s background affect the factors: Interaction, Collaboration, Assessment, Technology and Results?

Keywords:

Blended-learning, learning activities, students’ satisfaction.