What makes blended courses successful in the experience of teachers and students?

Digitalization has been high on the agenda of many European higher education institutions. While online teaching became a necessity during the Covid-19 pandemic, this situation also brought along a renewed recognition of the value of on-campus teaching and learning (ElSoussi, 2022). More recently, Blended Education (BE), in which online and on-campus aspects are combined, is becoming an increasingly popular delivery mode (Gaebel et al., 2021). BE can be generally defined as the thoughtful and conscious integration of online and on-campus activities in the context of a course or programme, where both types of activities are well-aligned and intended to reinforce each other (Oliver & Trigwell, 2005; Prinsen & Terbeek, 2021; Van Valkenburg et al., 2020). A previous literature review study (Bruck et al., 2022a) into characteristics of effective and meaningful BE has shown that there is not a “one-size-fits-all”-approach in BE and that educators should always carefully consider their blended course design and teaching in light of the specific course (e.g., learning goals) and educational context (e.g., availability of technology) at hand. This might pertain to choices made about what activity should take place online or on-campus and with what goal, but also to how to meet students’ needs regarding, for example, differentiation in instruction and flexibility in choosing their own learning pace. Thus, the success of BE depends on several contextual factors, and more insight is still needed into what works under different circumstances and for different learning goals. This study is part of a larger study investigating BE at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) at the request of the Executive Board of the UvA. When it comes to BE, lecturers at the UvA are still experimenting and discovering what works. Moreover, there is little indepth insight into why teachers make certain choices in designing and teaching blended courses, for example concerning the online versus on-campus ratio, digital tools or the teacher role. Hence, a qualitative approach was chosen to complement findings from a previous survey report into BE practices at the UvA (Bruck et al., 2022b). In this study we investigate what features of blended courses were perceived as successful by students and lecturers, in order to inform further development and improvement of BE at the UvA. The following research question guided the study: “What makes blended courses successful in the experience of teachers and students?”. We did not define the term successful beforehand, but instead focused on what teachers and students themselves consider a successful course. Answers to this question were sought by means of interviews with teachers, who taught and developed one or several blended courses at the UvA, and focus groups with students who followed these courses.