Transnational education programs: Student reflections on a fully-online versus a hybrid model

Abstract

With rapid expansion of the transnational education market, more and more universities join the ranks of transnational education providers, or expand their transnational education offerings. Many of those providers regard online provision of their programs as an economic alternative to face-to-face teaching. Do the transnational students support this view? This paper discusses student responses to the fully-online provision of education programs in several important transnational markets: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. The paper reports on a study of the perceptions of transnational students in those locales of the importance of the hybrid learning environment with an emphasis on face-to-face interaction in their courses, and discusses the importance of cultural sensitivities on those perceptions. The paper concludes by considering the future of the hybrid education model in the transnational context. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.