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Exploring Effects of Online and Face-to-Face Teaching Formats on Students’ Interest and Engagement

Published: 27 September 2023 Publication History

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for flexible teaching formats, particularly online education, as an alternative to traditional face-to-face (F2F) education. This study investigates the impact of teaching format (online vs. F2F) on secondary school students’ interest and engagement. We conducted an exploratory analysis of survey data from 16 workshops (F2F: 12, online: 4) held between January and December 2022, with 129 participants completing the survey (F2F: 76, online: 53, age: 10-16). All workshops covered the same learning topics, provided by online courses developed to raise interest in computer science (CS). Our findings show that the teaching format had a negligible effect on interest development. Still, students in the F2F setting showed higher engagement levels than those in the online setting. Additionally, an analysis of the effect of age indicates that younger students are more engaged in online settings than their older peers. We also found indications for longer-running programs having a greater effect on personal interest development compared to one-day programs. This paper discusses the results and identifies implications for teaching practice and future research. Overall, the study highlights the need to balance the advantages and limitations of both teaching formats and suggests potential strategies to improve online engagement.

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  • (2025)The Effects of Blended Learning on Learning Engagement in Physical Education Among University Students in China: The Mediating Role of AttitudesSustainability10.3390/su1702037817:2(378)Online publication date: 7-Jan-2025

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      cover image ACM Other conferences
      WiPSCE '23: Proceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research
      September 2023
      173 pages
      ISBN:9798400708510
      DOI:10.1145/3605468
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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      Publication History

      Published: 27 September 2023

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      Author Tags

      1. K-12
      2. STEM
      3. Teaching
      4. computer science education
      5. e-learning
      6. engagement
      7. face-to-face
      8. interdisciplinary curriculum
      9. interest
      10. online

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      • European Network for Gender Balance in Informatics (EUGAIN)

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      Overall Acceptance Rate 104 of 279 submissions, 37%

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      • (2025)The Effects of Blended Learning on Learning Engagement in Physical Education Among University Students in China: The Mediating Role of AttitudesSustainability10.3390/su1702037817:2(378)Online publication date: 7-Jan-2025

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