Student Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Technology Enhanced Learning in Blended Learning Contexts During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven major educational reforms as “universities across the globe search for new and innovative approaches to teaching, learning, and assessment” (Nimmo, The use of an assessed asynchronous online discussion forum to help foster deep learning. EAP in the North: Life online and beyond. https://www.baleap.org/event/eap-in-the-north-life-online-and-beyond , 2022). This rapidly changing landscape has challenged universities to (re)develop pedagogical approaches and practices, with a particular shift toward the use of technology enhanced learning (TEL), to both deliver the taught curriculum and equip students with twenty-first-century capabilities. This chapter set out to identify which TEL across the globe was perceived by the student community as effective during the pandemic and which is potentially transferable to the UK higher education EAP sector. An initial scoping review was conducted during the time frame March 2020–March 2022 as my department had made the rapid transition in late February 2020 from on campus to online blended learning in anticipation of a lockdown. We acted swiftly to ensure continued student engagement and to maximise recruitment potential. The transition proved highly successful with excellent evaluative staff and student feedback and subsequent accreditation from the BALEAP Accreditation Scheme for EAP courses (2022). I am sure there is more we can learn, however, given that the blended learning model has been adopted as a permanent feature across all our departmental offerings. In order to ascertain perceived TEL effectiveness, titles and abstracts from 142 journal articles were screened and analysed using guidelines set out by Boland et al.’s (Doing a systematic review. Sage Publication, 2014) guide to conducting systematic reviews, returning a final total of 11. The 11 studies discussed in the articles traversed 12 nations and included questionnaires, opinion polls, interviews, focus groups, and mixed-method approaches to gather student evaluative feedback. Two main themes emerged: tools to enhance the learning and assessment process and preferred learning modality. The findings suggest a preference for synchronous learning using video conferencing software such as Zoom and MS Teams, alongside applications such as Mentimeter, Quizlet, and Padlet. All 11 studies highlighted the benefit of TEL in regard to active student engagement and the development of graduate attributes. This chapter discusses these findings and their implication for UK HE pedagogy.