ABSTRACT
With the immersion of a plethora of technological tools in the early post-COVID-19 era in university education, instructors around the world have been at the forefront of implementing hybrid learning spaces for knowledge delivery. The purpose of this experimental study is not only to divert the primary use of a YouTube channel into a tool to support asynchronous teaching;it also aims to provide feedback to instructors and suggest steps and actions to implement in their teaching modules to ensure students' access to new knowledge while promoting their engagement and satisfaction, regardless of the learning environment, i.e., face-to-face, distance and hybrid. Learners' viewing habits were analyzed in depth from the channel's 37 instructional videos, all of which were related to the completion of a computer-aided mechanical design course. By analyzing and interpreting data directly from YouTube channel reports, six variables were identified and tested to quantify the lack of statistically significant changes in learners' viewing habits. Two time periods were specifically studied: 2020–2021, when instruction was delivered exclusively via distance education, and 2021–2022, in a hybrid learning mode. The results of both parametric and non-parametric statistical tests showed that 'Number of views';and 'Number of unique viewers';are the two variables that behave the same regardless of the two time periods studied, demonstrating the relevance of the proposed concept for asynchronous instructional support regardless of the learning environment. Finally, a forthcoming instructor's manual for learning CAD has been developed, integrating the proposed methodology into a sustainable academic educational process.
ABSTRACT
Since mid-March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, higher education has been facing a very uncertain situation, despite the hasty implementation of information and communication technologies for distance and online learning. Hybrid learning, i.e., the mixing of distance and face-to-face learning, seems to be the rule in most universities today. In order to build a post-COVID-19 university education, i.e., one that is increasingly digital and sustainable, it is essential to learn from these years of health crisis. In this context, this paper aims to identify and quantify the main factors affecting mechanical engineering student performance in order to build a generalized linear autoregressive (GLAR) model. This model, which is distinguished by its simplicity and ease of implementation, is responsible for predicting student grades in online learning situations in hybrid environments. The thirty or so variables identified by a previously tested model in 2020–2021, in which distance learning was the exclusive mode of learning, were evaluated in blended learning spaces. Given the low predictive power of the original model, about ten new factors, specific to blended learning, were then identified and tested. The refined version of the GLAR model predicts student grades to within ±1 with a success rate of 63.70%, making it 28.08% more accurate than the model originally created in 2020–2021. Special attention was also given to students whose grade predictions were underestimated and who failed. The methodology presented is applicable to all aspects of the academic process, including students, instructors, and decisionmakers.