M. Soncin, T. Agasisti, F. Frattini, Andrea S. Patrucco, M. Pero
{"title":"The Costs, Quality, and Scalability of Blended Learning in Postgraduate Management Education","authors":"M. Soncin, T. Agasisti, F. Frattini, Andrea S. Patrucco, M. Pero","doi":"10.1177/10525629221103826","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With its combination of online and face-to-face interaction, blended learning is increasingly being employed in postgraduate education. To date, most empirical research on the topic has focused on the design and relative effectiveness of online versus in-person learning. Meanwhile, any exploration of the costs of its delivery has often been neglected. In this study, we propose a framework to assess the costs and cost-effectiveness of alternative designs of blended postgraduate programs, and then empirically apply it to an innovative blended Master of Business Administration (MBA) course as compared with similar MBAs taught at the same institution, with the differences lying in their proportions of online content and the intensity of their use. We applied the Community of Inquiry framework to show that the program with the most intensive use of online learning is also the most effective in terms of student cognitive gain. However, it is not the most cost-effective when compared to other, less online-intensive alternatives. We also found that this result depends on the scalability constraints imposed by the design of the programs. The implications of the scalability versus the quality versus the costs of blended education are then discussed.","PeriodicalId":47308,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Management Education","volume":"46 1","pages":"1052 - 1085"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Management Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/10525629221103826","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With its combination of online and face-to-face interaction, blended learning is increasingly being employed in postgraduate education. To date, most empirical research on the topic has focused on the design and relative effectiveness of online versus in-person learning. Meanwhile, any exploration of the costs of its delivery has often been neglected. In this study, we propose a framework to assess the costs and cost-effectiveness of alternative designs of blended postgraduate programs, and then empirically apply it to an innovative blended Master of Business Administration (MBA) course as compared with similar MBAs taught at the same institution, with the differences lying in their proportions of online content and the intensity of their use. We applied the Community of Inquiry framework to show that the program with the most intensive use of online learning is also the most effective in terms of student cognitive gain. However, it is not the most cost-effective when compared to other, less online-intensive alternatives. We also found that this result depends on the scalability constraints imposed by the design of the programs. The implications of the scalability versus the quality versus the costs of blended education are then discussed.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Management Education (JME) encourages contributions that respond to important issues in management education. The overriding question that guides the journal’s double-blind peer review process is: Will this contribution have a significant impact on thinking and/or practice in management education? Contributions may be either conceptual or empirical in nature, and are welcomed from any topic area and any country so long as their primary focus is on learning and/or teaching issues in management or organization studies. Although our core areas of interest are organizational behavior and management, we are also interested in teaching and learning developments in related domains such as human resource management & labor relations, social issues in management, critical management studies, diversity, ethics, organizational development, production and operations, sustainability, etc. We are open to all approaches to scholarly inquiry that form the basis for high quality knowledge creation and dissemination within management teaching and learning.