Hybrid Schedule Preferences and its Impact on Undergraduate Learning

Hybrid schedules have become a popular mode of learning during the last decade as new classroom technologies have emerged. Universities have utilized online learning as a format to include more accessibility, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. College students are often given the option of choosing different learning modalities when scheduling courses. The objective of this study is to determine how multi-modal schedules impact preference, motivation, and learning. Fifty undergraduate students at Arizona State University were asked several questions pertaining to their academics. These included the types of courses they have taken in the past year, their motivation to learn in these modalities, and how they think they retained the information from their courses. Participants showed much higher motivation and learning within in-person classes, but an overall higher satisfaction for multi-modal schedules. These results show that Arizona State University should make an effort to increase student motivation for online and asynchronous classes, in addition to adding a variety of learning modes that best accommodate undergraduate students and their needs.