Is blended learning the future of education? Students perspective using discrete choice experiment analysis

This is the first study to use discrete choice experiment in exploring the stated choice preference of blended learning preference among the university students in the context of Bangladesh. As a pre-requisite in developing student engagement learning strategies, we investigate the choice preference of university students towards different types of blended learning to explore relevant concerns and challenges in order to plan for successful implementation of this option. Around 306 responses from the students belonging to Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP) and North South University (NSU) are considered representing both public and private universities in Bangladesh. Conditional logit model is used to explore the choice preference of the respondents based on the attributes. We find that university students explicitly dislike recorded videos as the primary mode of instruction as there is minimum human interaction using this method. Students with mobile internet also prefer offline classes to online classes, whereas students with broadband internet prefer the opposite choices. The policy implications of these findings hold global relevance in devising student engagement strategies towards blended learning such as for other developing economies in South Asia which were forced to transition to online learning as an adaptation response to the COVID-19 pandemic.