Measuring the success of active blended learning

Abstract

Active blended learning (ABL) is a defining aspect of the University of Northampton and has generated national and global interest. Within a few months of the author taking up a senior leadership position with the university, ABL was a significant positive factor in the university's ability to lock down the campus in response to COVID-19 and deliver education remotely. However, there is a scarcity of evaluation of ABL to provide evidence of the scale of its adoption in the university, its forms in different academic disciplines, its impact on different groups of students, and how to improve its effectiveness. Ideally, evaluation is always integral to pedagogic initiatives. It is however a reality that evaluation comes with challenges. This chapter explores why evaluation is so important and also so difficult. It proposes a way forward in the context of ABL by combining nationally available metrics with small-scale case studies.