Higher Secondary Commerce Students’ Engagement and Attitude towards Blended Learning Environment

Abstract

At present, classroom instruction should be a self-regulated process and the learner who is self-motivated to explore problems and situations. For learning, the students are learning through the web as a source of knowledge, the learning environment should be shifted to a learner-centered rather than teacher-centered environment. Commerce education is to be directed towards mastery in its conventions and principles, towards thinking and solving problems in scientific ways, towards developing a positive outlook to the discipline at the higher secondary level. Attitude towards learning is associated with the academic performance of commerce-related tasks and improving achievement. It should be one of the basic features in designing effective commerce classroom instruction. In the present study, students’ attitudes can be enhanced by using a blended learning instructional strategy targeting the variables of learner attitude towards learning of instructional transaction, learning task, classroom interaction, and assessment. The study employs pretest-posttest non-equivalence control group design under the quasi-experimental method. The sample consists of 80 students of standard XII, 40 students each in the experimental group and control group. Statistical techniques of descriptive statistics, t-test, and Cohen’s d were used for comparing the pretest and posttest scores of attitude towards learning and measuring the effect size between experimental and control groups. The findings of the study showed that there is a significant difference in the mean posttest scores of attitude towards learning between the experimental group and control group and the blended learning instructional strategy is more beneficial in developing the attitude of higher secondary school students when compared to constructivist teaching strategy.