Page 212 - BLENDED LEARNING

The students were taken to the computer laboratory for one hour bi-weekly after the
study began. In the lab sessions, students were supposed to work on the assigned
resources and ask for help with the technical problems they faced in using MEC.
The lab sessions were useful in helping students solve technical problems and
encouraging them to use MEC. At the beginning of the study, most of the problems
students had involved how to use certain features of MEC. Later in these sessions,
student focused on using the resources they wanted.

One of the aims of blending in this study was to compensate for learner differences
and needs in experience with content, realising that some students had prior
experience with the material and, thus, might not have to review the material as
much as others. On the other hand, a student could receive additional information
and training through extra online learning programmes while still attending in-class
training with other students. Students who needed more practice could have that
opportunity without taking face-to-face class time away from those who might not
need the extra practice. This created a more learner-centered environment by
addressing varying learning styles or needs.
Another goal of blending over using any single learning delivery mode was to have
two major modes and environments, online and face-to-face delivery, in shaping the
learning process. In this study, learners had a larger space to learn and teachers to
teach more effectively. They were not confined to class boundaries any more. While
teachers could help students any time by sending extra resources, students could
access the materials at any time of day and review them as needed, which provided
them with increased flexibility. In-class teaching on its own requires learners to
participate in lessons at a fixed time, which limits the access. However, learning
does not occur only in class. In this study, apart from the class instruction, learners
could reach learning materials and teachers via MEC outside the class.

Results, implications and conclusion
The study aimed to explore the effects of an online LMS called MEC on Turkish EFL
preparatory students’ achievement and opinions in ITU School of Foreign Languages.
The data for achievement was collected through the pre-test, progress test, and
post-test. In all of these tests, students were tested on listening, grammar, vocabulary
and reading. These tests were administered to both classes on the same day and
at the same time. The listening sections of the tests were in the form of note-taking.
The students were given note-taking sheets to take notes before the exam booklets
were distributed. Students answered the listening questions based on their notes.
Grammar was tested with multiple choice cloze tests except for the pre-test in which
it was tested with discrete multiple choice items. As for the reading sections, students
read a text and answered questions based on it. In the vocabulary section, students
chose the correct word from a list of words to fill in the blanks in given sentences.

In order to find out any pre-existing difference in achievement, the pre-test scores
were compared and revealed no statistical difference between the experimental
class and the control class (t(58) =1.984, p= .052). Later, the scores of the pre-test,
progress test and post test were analysed to find out whether MEC had an effect
on the achievement of students. The analysis of the test results indicated that the

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