The COVID-19 pandemic moved forward an already existing trend toward distant education. These digital transformations included the digitalization and strategic shift of teaching and learning from face-to-face (F2F) to remote or hybrid teaching and learning. Higher hybrid education can allow students to choose their preferred attendance and participation mode: F2F or remotely, offering learners the flexibility to engage with learning materials according to their preferences. Recent work, however, shows a polarizing effect, with greater spread of learning outcomes in a Remote compared to a F2F format. This emerging new flexibility offered by many institutions, raised questions regarding the degree to which students should get the autonomy to choose their own learning modality and the impact of their choices on their learning outcomes. To address these open questions, we conducted a study on the undergraduate student population of a research-intensive university.

Specifically, we studied the influence of students’ chosen attendance mode to hybrid synchronous lectures (F2F/Remote) and lecture attendance frequency (High/Low) on learning activity patterns and perceived value. The focus on student activity level is important as active learning can produce deeper, more meaningful learning, improve learning outcomes, and may change as a function of the learning format. Furthermore, active learning was shown to be one of the most effective teaching and learning strategies in supporting students’ learning during the transition to emergency response teaching and afterwards.

We additionally compared the value students attribute to different learning opportunities as a function of their chosen attendance formats. Measuring perceived value in this context serves as a proxy for student satisfaction, a complex structure, shown to be important to various learning outcomes in higher education. Finally, we evaluated how academic context (academic discipline, GPA) impacts learning format choices.

Nine hundred twenty students in a technological university in [blinded] were surveyed about their participation in “a challenging hybrid course”.

We found that those who chose F2F-attendance attended regularly. On the other hand, remotely-attending students present a bimodal distribution: only a third attend regularly, and half merely attend. Results show that participation patterns and the value attributed to learning activities varied as a function of attendance format and frequency. Remotely-attending students were more active with asynchronous resources (e.g., readings and videos) and rated these resources higher compared to F2F-attending students (both High and Low attending). Both high-attendance groups (F2F/remote) were more active during lectures (clicker questions and note-taking) compared to Low-remote-attending students. However, High-attending F2F students were more active with groupwork and rated lectures higher than remote-attending students. Although remote learning may have drawbacks in terms of connecting with peers and faculty, High-remote-attendance seems as effective as High-F2F-attendance.

Keywords: Hybrid education, higher STEM education, active learning, perceived value.