Search

Students’ learning experience and their engagement in online learning environments are becoming increasingly important as blended learning grows more prevalent in tertiary education. In this study, asynchronous lectures for applied sciences courses, offered to polytechnic students of Applied Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Science at Nanyang Polytechnic, were designed using the Community of Inquiry framework. Students’ perceptions of their learning experience and cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement in asynchronous lectures were determined through a survey study. The results showed that students were engaged and had positive learning experiences. Through an educational design research methodology, this survey study also determined and provided design features important for designing asynchronous lectures. Further research could explore the possibility of expanding the scope of the research to other institutions with students of different cultural backgrounds, learning preferences, and learning abilities.

The quality and effectiveness of online teaching-learning are increasingly important with online learning becoming the norm. This cross-sectional survey study aimed to determine the relationship between first-year polytechnic students' perception of chemistry asynchronous lectures and their learning performance. Their perception was determined using the community of inquiry survey instrument and learning performance was obtained based on their end-of-semester test results. Although students' perceptions of the asynchronous lectures were positive, results showed that the association of their perception to learning performance is positive but weak. Through the survey, students also shared features of asynchronous lectures that helped with their learning. The practical guidelines shared in this study will help educators develop asynchronous lectures leading to meaningful learning experiences for students.

Research-based blended learning (RBBL) allows students to be part of an authentic scientific discovery process. In this study, students' perception and motivation of the RBBL coupled with Scrum methodology in a third-year polytechnic chemistry laboratory course were investigated. Results showed that the scaffolded approach, designed referencing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and learning presence, developed students' technical and process skills (adaptability, critical thinking, and problem solving skills). With the positive student-instructor interaction experienced by the students, they were confident, engaged, and motivated to work on the research project despite its complexity.