The Relationships Between Modality, Peer Instruction Discussion, and Class Sentiment in Hybrid Courses
While hybrid courses have gained popularity in higher education, it remains uncertain if a student’s experience of a course is consistent between in-person and online modalities. To investigate this, we analyzed student modality and discussion data from the Spring 2023 offering of an elective data science course where students are allowed to attend each lecture in person or synchronously online.
Our analysis revealed that there were, counter-intuitively, no statistically significant effects between students’ modality mix alone and their feeling of community and learning in the course. Rather, discussing peer instruction questions with peers, particularly while attending class in person, was positively related with a stronger feeling of community. However, there did not appear to be a statistically significant relationship between students’ discussions and their perception of whether their modality mix supported their learning.