The future of university education – is the heyday of blended learning process coming?

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to understand the opinion and attitude of students and university professors about the quality of the learning process of these three forms of education - traditional, online and blended/ hybrid and in general their attitude of using new technologies in learning process of the universities. We conducted an empirical study (n=427) among university professors (31) and university students (396). Our findings reveal that students and university professors express preference for blended/hybrid type of education, comparing to traditional face-to-face or online education. 47% of respondents prefer blended/ hybrid learning over traditional (41%) or online (12%). Blended/ hybrid learning process receives the largest acceptance for the following advantages: personal attention from the professors; improved communication and flexibility and convenience. At the same time, 66% of respondents are convinced that new technologies have positive (31%) and even very positive (35%) impact on their motivation to learn. This result clearly proves the need for deeper integration of the new technologies in the educational process in universities.