Facilitating Students’ Learning with Hybrid Instruction: A Comparison among four learning styles.

Abstract

Introduction. Since a part of the instruction happens online, a hybrid course has usually been used to solve the problems of space and time. This article explores how students' learning styles influence their learning and satisfaction when certain format of a hybrid course is implemented. Methods. Participants were 122 first-year students at a private university in Thailand participating in 14-week fundamental English classes. Research instruments included English proficiency tests, a learning style questionnaire, and a satisfaction questionnaire. The data were analyzed by dependent t-tests, One-way Analysis of Variance, mean and standard deviation. Results. Results suggest that hybrid teaching can be an effective way for language development. Interestingly, although students in four learning styles did not differ in their language improvement, their satisfaction was statistically different in two pairs: reflectors and activists; reflectors and pragmatists. In addition, students with reflector style (those who learn best from thinking about what has been learned, listening to and observing others, thinking through before acting on them, and working at their own pace) achieved a higher satisfaction with the course than the other three groups of learning style. Discussion and Conclusion. Results confirmed the effectiveness of hybrid instruction in language development as well as students’ high level of satisfaction on hybrid instruction. Implications for practice were discussed. Key words: hybrid teaching, language teaching, learning styles, blended learning