Understanding the Challenges and Opportunities of Hybrid Education with Location Asynchrony

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has severely disrupted traditional on-site education. One currently deployed alternative are hybrid education formats, which combine online and on-site elements. To successfully orchestrate these formats, educators and educational institutions need to understand the challenges and opportunities hybrid education can pose to both students and educators. This is especially true when hybrid education allows for asynchrony of the learning location, e.g. allowing students to choose whether they attend online or on-site. This understanding is central, as previous research demonstrates the importance of believes and attitudes for educational performance. To understand these challenges and opportunities, we deployed a qualitative research design and identified three challenges and three opportunities of hybrid education allowing location asynchrony. We discuss these findings and highlight three larger underlying themes (balancing flexibility with complexity, the challenge of interpersonal connectedness in highly diverse settings, and digital proficiency), including sometimes opposing perspectives of students and educators.