A Study on the Effect Mechanism of Blended Learning Model on the Learning Effect of Diversified Students in Higher Vocational Education Enrollment Expansion

Abstract

Upon the announcement of the policy to expand enrollment to one million social students of China’s higher vocational education in 2019, a fervor to enter colleges and universities swept across Chinese social members, eliciting a tremendous response within the vocational education sector. As the expansion of enrollment progressed steadily throughout 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Education and other related departments further introduced policies to expand enrollment in 2020, continuing to increase enrollment by an additional two million students in 2020 and 2021. The expansion of enrollment measures has facilitated the entry of adult social students into vocational colleges, which were originally oriented towards full-time students, and expanded the existing education and teaching system of vocational colleges. However, this expansion has also led to the emergence of issues surrounding the training of talent for adult education.In order to effectively ensure the quality of education provided to the adult enrollment expansion group, higher vocational colleges must consider deep-level reforms to their talent development models, ranging from enrollment sources to teaching, training, and employment guidance. Therefore, based on the learning characteristics required of adult learners and the application of new digital technologies in education, blended learning has become an important and necessary teaching format for diversified enrollment sources.

In this study, a diversified enrollment blended learning effect model was constructed, which takes into account the joint influence of teachers’ teaching behaviors and students’ learning engagement on learning outcomes. A questionnaire was used to verify the theoretical model by surveying a portion of the expanded enrollment students.The results indicate that: 1) the teacher’s teaching attitude and preparation, as well as the students’ learning engagement, all have a significant positive impact on learning outcomes; 2) the teacher’s teaching attitude and preparation have a significant positive effect on the three dimensions of students’ learning engagement; 3) the teaching context only has a positive and significant impact on cognitive engagement; 4) the mediating effect of each dimension of learning engagement between teaching attitude, teaching preparation, and learning outcomes is significant; 5) learning motivation and self-efficacy have significant moderating effects on the relationship between teaching attitude, teaching preparation, and each dimension of learning engagement.

To achieve better learning outcomes in students from diversifiedsources, higher vocational colleges should pay more attention to the teaching behavior of teachers and the learning input of students when implementing a blended learning mode. This includes ensuring that the teaching plans and objectives set by teachers are suitable for blended learning, and that students’ sense of self-efficacy and learning motivation are enhanced through the blended learning experience, which will help to promote the reform and development of adult education, vocational education, and continuing education.