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Table 10. 1. Types of benefits identified in Oracle's leadership training.






" The course made me realize that the individual is Self/internal benefit

much more empowered in today's environment than ever before." (Blended)

" I think the leadership training classes have Self/internal benefit

applications... probably throughout my life. So I've sort of taken that approach... in my dealings with my personal relationships as well." (ILT)

" I think I look at my employees a little differently.... Company/internal benefit I see them as capable of delivering much more and that the only way they can deliver that is for me to motivate them." (Blended)

" I guess the most tangible thing I can point to... Company/external benefit

is maybe I've kept two or three of my people motivated to the point where they haven't resigned." (Blended)

" I think it just encouraged me to communicate Reinforcement

more with my employees.... This is a reinforcement of the benefits of sharing your feelings." (Blended)


To Blend or Not to Blend 143

TABLE 10.2. PARTICIPANT BENEFITS FROM ILT AND BLENDED

METHODOLOGIES, i

Self/ Self/ Company/ Company/

Internal External Internal External Reinforcement

 

Instructor-led training (N = 6) 1.33 1.17 0.50 0.67 0.17
Blended participants (N=13) 1.46 0.08 1.00 1.69 0.31

We counted and averaged the benefits for blended and ILT learners accord­ing to these labels. In every category except the " self/external" benefits, the blended participants reported more benefits than the ILT participants (Table 10.2).

Although we were looking for trends rather than statistical significance, the data on benefits between ILT and blended learners had a significance of over 90 percent (independent samples test), indicating a fairly strong likelihood of a relationship between total number of benefits (dependent variable) and type of instructional strategy (independent variable).

As blended learners appeared to benefit more and comment more frequently on the sense of community, we turned to the learning community study to focus on the dynamics of community building, particularly how the mix of face-to-face and online interaction might affect the learners.

Dynamics of Blending

According to the literature, learning communities require a level of interpersonal trust (Bonk, Wisher, & Nigrelli, 2004). In fact, we found the development of trust in the blended learning modules to be related to the type of content being taught and the timing of the face-to-face event (that is, which week in the five-week program). It appeared that when people know there is a classroom experience planned later in the program, they might withhold trust until they meet each other face-to-face. This finding surprised us, as many sources (for example, Palloff & Pratt, 1999) comment on the quick development of trust in a solely online envi­ronment. Such results raise a question that deserves further investigation: Is trust more closely linked to course content or the expectation of meeting? A lesson we drew from these findings is that trust may not automatically develop online when a follow-up face-to-face event is planned; instead, it is likely affected by other factors. A blended design may ultimately deepen trust in a community because


The Handbook of Blended Learning

online activities have the potential to extend relationships after face-to-face ses­sions; however, this too requires additional study.

Comments about trust from a few participants include the following:

" It's hard to build a good, solid, working relationship without some kind of

face-to-face."

" I felt more of a connection [to colleagues] in class, but I didn't feel much

of a connection online—it was more difficult to form a connection online.

It also appeared to me that other people in the course weren't having as

much difficulty in doing that; some of the other people in the course

seemed like they were more involved than I was."

" I thought the best way of going through the modules was to have everyone in the classroom setting, the sooner the better.... For me, I prefer the first week.... I think it really brought people together and formed a real sense of community; people got to know each other, they bonded, and then they were more inclined to participate in the online events going forward.... You can put a face with a name... and you didn't want to let that person down. It definitely builds commitment."

We saw considerable evidence that our learners strongly valued the commu­nity in the blended environment. They appeared to realize that this was an aspect of the experience that would be missing if they took only the classroom seg­ment. Our learners were inclined to look at the blended experience instrumen-tally; the amount of learner investment depended on the amount of value received from the community.

Comments about value from a few participants in these interviews included:

" Being less inclined toward groups by nature, I saw a lot of people in the course where I could see a lot of value in creating a tighter network with a lot of people."

" One of the things I got out of it was meeting people from the rest of the company and understanding that they deal with the same kinds of chal­lenges as I do."

" Trust is important to the learning community... the bond... one of the things people experienced that they didn't expect to experience... this is true in both online and classroom... is that they discovered they weren't so isolated.... They're so focused on their own little division and they don't realize others are experiencing the same problems or dilemmas."


To Blend or Not to Blend



Content and goal congruence affected learners' involvement in the commu­nity and the course. For example, if the content involved more self-discovery than specific task orientation, learners were often more engaged in the course. Inter­estingly, we also realized that learners seemed to use the community for instru­mental (task-oriented) reasons rather than experiential (social) reasons. This led us to suspect that job-oriented training environments may stimulate different mo­tivational factors than academic learning environments would, an issue that in­structional designers should consider in organizational training environments as well as those in higher education who are creating workplace learning courses and activities.

Other Blended Outcomes

We saw evidence in this learning community study of other effects of a blended environment that are worth noting. First, blended participants tended to place the most importance on the delivery method with the highest-touch element. For example, the face-to-face classroom experience was often seen as the actual or pri­mary instructional event, while the online and virtual activities were viewed as support elements to the classroom experience. If further research and evalua­tion continue to support this hypothesis, it could have significant implications for the placement of content within delivery media in blended environments.

Second, it was clear that organizational culture and environment have a strong effect on the formation and building of a learning community. For example, a cul­ture like the one at Oracle Corporation tends to be very action oriented and allows minimal time for reflection and deeper collaboration with classmates, which is a primary factor in learning. Hence, the cultural norms can have an impact on the level of commitment to a learning community in a blended learning design. These factors act as constraints on the formation and functioning of learning com­munities in corporate environments and change the dynamics of learners' ex­pected benefits in exchange for their investment of time in the community. It is likely that any shift in the training mind-set toward valuing a more integrated and on-the-job learning environment would involve many company cultures and norms.

Finally, the interviews reinforced the fact that different personality types have different needs and require different instructional methods. Similar to the impact of environment, this has implications on how participants tend to view the rele­vance and value of the learning community, and thus the time and effort they are willing to invest in it. As instructional designers, we must remind ourselves that learners' personality characteristics will affect how they view not only training



The Handbook of Blended Learning


content, but also the delivery media and interpersonal outcomes of the training as well.

Is Community Worth It?

We saw much in our studies that gratified us and convinced us that a blended approach was advantageous in Oracle's existing training environment, including a higher level of perceived benefits for learners as well as an enhanced sense of community both during and after the training. These are subtle but important effects. In the benefits study, it also seemed that blended participants were more favorable toward Oracle as a result of their learning experience; blended learners were 30.4 percent more positive when asked how strongly they would recommend Oracle to a potential employee. Further study is needed to evaluate this phenomenon adequately but we found it encouraging.

Despite these positive results, given the additional cost associated with im­plementing the blended approach, we must ask whether it was worth it. There a much information available now on evaluating the return on investment (ROI) re­lated to corporate training (for example, Goldwasser, 2001; Phillips, 2003; Purcell. 2000), but it is challenging and potentially error prone to evaluate the ROI for results such as community building, perception of benefits, or an improved attitude toward the company.

Calculating the marginal costs associated with a blended module is rela­tively easy. By adding operating costs for the blended format to the opportunm cost of the extra time blended learners had to devote to a module, then amortiz­ing total blended module development costs across the first year of operation, we found that the additional cost per learner was $3, 157. Oracle estimated thai 140 employees would participate in a module in the first year, at a total cost of about $440, 000. In the years beyond that, assuming all other figures stay constant and the amortized development costs are eliminated, the cost for Oracle to involv another 140 participants would be reduced to approximately $320, 000. These figures for the first and second years of implementation turned out to be ap­proximately.0055 percent and.0039 percent of Oracle's overall revenue, respectively.

Clearly from a financial standpoint, the estimated cost to the company ma\ be unnoticeable when it comes to Oracle's overall finances. From a learning out­comes point of view, since these studies seem to indicate that learners' sense of community, perceived benefits, and employee attitude all improve when enrolled in a blended learning course, Oracle's return on the training investment seems strong. With a relatively small marginal investment from the corporation.


To Blend or Not to Blend



it seems that greater employee commitment and increased benefits to the com­pany can be enjoyed.

If a company like Oracle desires to have a positive impact on its employees such that increased contributions to the company may also occur, a blended learn­ing approach may be a step in the right direction. With blended learning, em­ployees feel the company has invested more in them and supported them better in their learning. In response, employees appear to have a more positive attitude about the company. These simple outcomes can go a long way when it comes to developing company loyalty, strong ethical standards, and high productivity, but the extent to which these are valued will vary from company to company.

The Future of Blended Learning at Oracle

Oracle intends to continue its approach of blended learning development. As with any other service, training, or product, 100 percent of the people will never be pleased 100 percent of the time. However, blended approaches seem to generate intangible benefits, such as community formation, that are nearly impossible to measure, although they are ultimately essential to an organization's success.

Community (or human networks) seems to be a key element in extending and sustaining employee learning and contributions over a period of time. Our ex­ploratory studies lead us to believe that blended learning designs help to facilitate such peer interactions and networks better than online or ILT alone. In addition, our studies indicate that learning communities in blended environments were used not for social reasons primarily but for more task-oriented needs. Although the in­tegration of blended learning activities requires a behavioral shift in most orga­nizations, the benefits could prove to be significant for an organization over the long term.

References

Bean, M. (2002, September). Training and technology: Methods that work in global enter­prise. Chief Learning Officer, 1(\), 22-25.

Bonk, C.J., & Dennen, V. (2000, August). More advances in Web pedagogy: Fostering interac­tion and the online learning community. Paper presented at the Distance Learning Six­teenth Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning, Madison, Wisconsin. (ERIC No. ED456235)

Bonk, C. J., Wisher, R. A., & Nigrelli, M. L. (2004). Learning communities, communities of practice: Principles, technologies, and examples. In K. Littleton, D. Faulkner, & D. Miell (Eds.), Learning to collaborate, collaborating to learn (pp. 199-219). Hauppauge, NY: NOVA Science Publishers.



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