Blended Instruction: Student Perceptions of Communications Technology in Face-to-Face Courses

Blended instruction is becoming more commonplace in higher education. Students not only attend classes, meeting face-to-face with each other and their instructors, but they also can communicate electronically outside of class meetings using course management tools such as WebCT, BlackBoard, Angel, and the like. There has been a considerable amount of research on human interaction and communication in online distance learning. However, there is a paucity of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) in face-to-face courses. While there are many distance education studies of student satisfaction or perceptions of CMC, studies on residential student perceptions of CMC are rare. In this study we explored residential student perceptions of CMC in face-to-face courses with respect to their preferences, experiences, opinions, needs, and problems. We focused on asynchronous CMC, such as e-mail communication or threaded discussion, not on synchronous CMC (e.g., real-time chat). Furthermore, we examined whether their experiences and perceptions are consistent with existing studies, focusing mainly on the fit between media and tasks.