Promoting quality education through blended learning during and post COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on all facets of education. This led to educational institutions deploying blended and online systems for teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of blended learning in promoting quality education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

The qualitative research design was deployed in this study and enabled the researcher to collect data via in-depth interviews. Twenty-five (25) tertiary institutions accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) were randomly selected to participate in this study. The registrars of the institutions were purposively selected and served as the participants for the study. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data collected via the interview. Ethical considerations were adhered to during the study.

Findings

The study established that COVID-19 had a devastating effect on tertiary institutions; multiple technological and open-sourced systems were deployed for teaching and learning; blended learning was adopted to augment the traditional face-to-face mode of teaching and learning due to its ease of use, usefulness and accessibility as it was used for quizzes and assignments, accessing lecture notes, among others. Despite these, the deployment of technological and blended systems was met with challenges that somehow affected effective teaching, learning.

Research limitations/implications

The study was limited to 25 tertiary educational institutions in Ghana. It was again limited to the COVID-19 era.

Practical implications

This research aids in understanding the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning and how blended learning is currently deployed and used in tertiary institutions in Ghana. The findings are relevant to policymakers and management of educational institutions as it informs them of the right method and tools to deploy for teaching and learning during pandemics.

Originality/value

As educational institutions globally are dealing with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is prudent to look into how tertiary institutions in Ghana deploy blended learning to facilitate teaching and learning. Thus, this paper is original as it fills the relevant literature gap in terms of scope, setting, methodology and findings.

Citation

Dei, D.-G.J. (2024), "Promoting quality education through blended learning during and post COVID-19 pandemic", Quality Education for All, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 256-276. https://doi.org/10.1108/QEA-10-2023-0011

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on all facets of education which has led to the closedown of most educational institutions. Academic institutions were partially or completely shut down. This called for urgent steps to guarantee the continuation of teaching and learning in tertiary institutions in Ghana. This made tertiary institutions adopt new methodologies and technologies for teaching, learning, research and innovation. It forced many institutions to discontinue the outdated chalk-talk and old paradigm of teaching, research and learning with modern technology. The use of an online teaching technique helped in this case (Asamoah, 2020). Thus, tertiary institutions sought to adopt the blended learning approach which presents a combination of traditional teaching and e-learning following the COVID-19 pandemic. They sought to deploy blended learning to ensure that educational activities and quality of education are maintained and promoted in all aspects of their educational activities. Thus, blended learning is based on a wise and balanced combination of traditional learning with web-based online approaches (Rasmitadila et al., 2020), which in turn, involves a combination of media and tools deployed in an e-learning environment and the combination of a number of pedagogical approaches (Dweikat and Amer, 2017).

Again, there was a surge in interest in the value of online and digital learning across the world with Ghana inclusive. Higher education and the teaching and learning experience have been directly impacted. Face-to-face learning has mostly been superseded by blended learning and/or online learning at academic institutions. Given the abrupt shift in the educational environment, it is crucial to record student preferences in order to describe how students have experienced various teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Proponents of blended learning have argued that blended learning might be viewed as a chance to improve student experience and academic quality (Liu et al., 2024; Spanjers et al., 2015). Lomer and Palmer (2023) and Selwyn (2016) all provide evidence that blended learning can be a constraining element in lecture delivery.

In Ghana, the COVID-19 pandemic presented a scenario where students and instructors anticipated teaching and learning via face-to-face delivery at the beginning of the semester in January 2020 but face-to-face was substituted with blended delivery in April/May 2020 as a result of the pandemic. When face-to-face delivery was substituted with blended learning, there is a chance that students and instructors may feel that they have been getting a “lesser” teaching and learning experience. On the other hand, it's also feasible that during the COVID-19 pandemic, students and instructors found it awkward to attend in-person courses. The use and deployment of blended learning was thus seen as a means of ensuring that teaching and learning continue without compromising on quality. Again, the real impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teaching and learning and to ensure quality education is yet to be known. The available technological support systems deployed by the institutions to ensure quality education is also yet to be established.

This study, therefore, sought to find out the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning at the tertiary institutions in Ghana; the technological systems deployed for teaching and learning; identify the available support for the blended learning approach during the COVID-19 pandemic; assess the relevance of the blended learning approach during the COVID-19 pandemic; and find out the challenges associated with the blended learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Significantly, the study seek to fill the relevant literature gap in terms of scope, setting, methodology and findings. The findings will guide the management, policymakers and stakeholders of educational institutions such as the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC), Vice-Chansellors, Rectors and Principals, in formulating policies and guidelines of the right method and tools to deploy for teaching and learning in the 21^st century, during epidemics and/or pandemics and for sustainable development.

Theoretical perspective

A typical theoretical framework provides a schematic description of relationships between and among independent, dependent, moderator, control and extraneous variables so that a reader can easily comprehend the theorized relationships. The researcher adopted the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the theory underpinning the study. TAM was adopted to help underpin and understand the perception of learners toward the blended learning approach in an attempt to assess the purpose, relevance and challenges in the adoption and use of blended learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The technology acceptance model (TAM) (Figure 1) propounded by Davis, et al. (1989) focuses on the variables affecting users’ acceptance and satisfaction with technology usage. The TAM, and variations of it, are geared toward understanding the underlying factors affecting users’ technology acceptance of systems, such as LMS (Padilla-Meléndez et al., 2008). The TAM is premised on the assumption that some variables largely influence the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of any system. This largely also influences attitude toward use, intention to use and ultimately actual use.

Perceived usefulness is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance” (Davis, 1993). In the context of blended learning, perceived usefulness is defined as the perception of how a user sees improvement in learning effects through the adoption of a blended learning approach. Perceived ease of use, conversely, is seen as the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system (blended learning or e-learning system) would be easy to adopt and easy to use. This means that if a user subjectively sees a platform or system as easy to use, the user will be willing to use it. In the context of E-learning, perceived ease of use can be described as the ease a user feels for adopting blended learning and therefore perceived ease of use has a significant relationship with E-learner satisfaction.

Quality education and sustainable development goal 4

The concept of quality and quality education is the foundation for sustainable development (Camilleri and Camilleri, 2020). Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. UNICEF defines quality education as “education that works for every child and enables all children to achieve their full potential (UNICEF, 2016). According to Warren (2021) and Stephens (2003), quality education is not just measured by students' learning achievement but includes the relevance of what is taught and learned and its relevance and association with the continuous needs of the learner. Evidently, the quality of education is dependent on the learning achievement of the students and other factors such as infrastructural support (Romlah and Latief, 2021), technological support (Marks and Thomas, 2022; Tømte et al., 2019) financial support (Shaturaev, 2021) and social and psychological support (Immordino-Yang et al., 2019) among others. For quality to be effective, investment is needed in educational investment and technological advancement (Marks and Thomas, 2022). Quality education thrives on information technology (Haleem et al., 2022; Marks and Thomas, 2022; Dei, 2019).

Quality Education which is a sustainable development goal 4 (SDG 4) is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all and has seven targets and three means of implementation (Owusu-Ansah, 2021; English and Carlsen, 2019). This goal came about through an intensive consultative process led by member states but with broad participation from civil society, teachers, unions, bilateral agencies, regional organizations, the private sector and research institutes and foundations (Unterhalter, 2019). Progress has been made toward achieving SDG 4 (Gyamerah, 2019) and there are new knowledge horizons and opportunities for strengthened solidarity and partnerships around the provision of quality education and lifelong learning for all (Boeren and Field, 2019). Yet the context is also changing with new technologies and skill demands (Comyn, 2018), as well as economic shocks and environmental degradation (Usman et al., 2020).

Concept of blended learning

The terms “blended,” “hybrid,” “technology-mediated instruction,” “web-enhanced instruction,” and “mixed-mode instruction” are often used interchangeably in research literature. Le and Aves (2021) highlight that Blended Learning can begin the necessary process of redefining higher education institutions as being learning-centered and facilitating a higher learning experience. This clearly describes blended learning as an impetus for learning and teaching experience and to further redefine higher educational institutions (Trevisan et al., 2020). It provides an opportunity to address the complex educational and social phenomena issues (Antwi-Boampong, 2020; Biney, 2021).

Jowsey et al. (2020) defined Blended learning as a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through the delivery of content and instruction via digital and online media with some element of student control over time, place, path or pace. It describes a learning environment that either combines teaching methods, delivery methods, two media formats or a mixture of all these (Hrastinski, 2019). It also refers to integrated learning activities such as a mixture of online and face-to-face learning (Trevisan et al., 2020; Hrastinski, 2019). Blended learning, however, is usually referred to as a hybrid model at university practices (Lim et al., 2019), which are courses in which a significant portion of the learning activities have been moved online, and time traditionally spent in the classroom is reduced but not eliminated (Eyal and Gil, 2022).

In a nutshell, blended learning is based on a wise and balanced combination of traditional learning with web-based online approaches (Rasmitadila et al., 2020), which in turn, involves a combination of media and tools deployed in an e-learning environment and the combination of a number of pedagogical approaches (Dweikat and Amer, 2017).

Blended learning may provide pedagogical benefits such as increased learning effectiveness, satisfaction and efficiency (Graham, 2013). Zhang et al. (2022) cited three general purposes for blended learning adoption: (1) enhanced pedagogy, (2) increased access and flexibility and (3) improved cost-effectiveness and resource use.

Blended learning in tertiary institutions

The characteristic of tertiary educational institutions is a large number of students per teacher, which makes quality mentoring/individual teaching practically impossible (Aleksić and Ivanović, 2013). A particular problem is the heterogeneous time frame in which the students accomplish the subjects (Lizcano et al., 2020; Aleksić and Ivanović, 2013). By applying the blended learning model, the efficiency of the teaching process is improved and the stated problems are overcome (Herayanti et al., 2020; Chowdhury, 2019). Less frequent physical contact with the teacher (and students mutually) presents the dissocial factor (Aleksić and Ivanović, 2013). However, educational technology creates a new “communication bridge” between the actors in the teaching process (Díaz et al., 2020).

For higher education courses, blended learning has become a reality characterized by continuous benefits (Mahaye, 2020) and the potential to transform and improve the learning process (Castro, 2019). New, highly interactive, meaningful and student-centered blended learning environments have been developed and fostered by current and advanced technologies (Capone, 2022; Faraniza, 2021). Stockwell et al. (2015) found that blended learning programs may increase tutor contact through online discussion. Online discussions in blended learning can be either synchronous or asynchronous (Hernández-Lara et al., 2021).

Blended learning has been established to produce statistically better results than face-to-face, non-hybrid equivalents (Stecyk, 2018). This may be partly because this rapidly growing model not only increases the flexibility and individualization of student learning experiences (Masadeh, 2021) but also allows teachers to expand the time they spend as facilitators of learning (DreamBox_Learn, 2019). Graham and Robinson (2007) and Marunić (2015) support the fact that blended learning has been embedded in higher education. In 2005, it was found that 93% of doctoral programs and 89% of master´s programs, but only 50% of baccalaureate programs offered blended learning classes (Arabasz and Baker, 2003).

Brenya (2022) investigated the perceptions of teacher educators in their practices of blended learning in Ghana using the TAM as the theoretical framework for the study. The results indicated that teacher educators have positive perceptions about the blended learning approach being effective and efficient for teaching and learning. Hence, the blended learning method should be practiced for effective and creative teaching. However, the educators revealed certain challenges such as lack of internet resources, lack of office space and recording studio in the blended learning environments and poor functionality of technological, gadgets among others. From the students perspective, Mamattah (2016), Mamattah (2016) and Dei (2018a) disclosed that majority of Ghanaian students think e-learning is an innovative idea and must be encouraged, however, few concerns such as the fear of employers’ discrimination against those who study through e-learning were discovered. Antwi-Boampong (2020) also highlight that faculty blended learning can be understood through the lens of motivational theories of hygiene and the competing internal and external environmental priorities that faculty must construct and define in order to adopt blended learning.

Models of blended learning

There exist many models for blended learning. These include the face-to-face driver model, rotational model, flex model, online laboratory model, self-blend model and online driver model (Ayob et al., 2020; Saied and Nasr, 2018). The face-to-face driver model involves introducing online instruction case-by-case, so only specific students in a given class will engage in any kind of blended learning (Saied and Nasr, 2018; Tsai et al., 2017). Students who are failing or performing above grade level can use technology in the classroom to advance at their own speed by using the face-to-face driver method (Kintu, et al., 2017). This strategy has been proven by certain schools to be an effective means of involving English language learners (ELL) (Rivera, 2017), who occasionally lag behind not because they are unable to comprehend a concept but rather because they are not native speakers (Blaine, 2019).

On the other hand, there is the online driver model in which students work remotely and materials are predominantly given via an online platform (Ayob et al., 2020). Even though in-person check-ins are optional, students can typically ask instructors questions online via chat (DreamBox, 2019; Saied and Nasr, 2018). For students who want more independence and flexibility in their daily routines, a blended learning style is appropriate (Horn and Staker, 2011).

The rotational blended model enables students to alternate between several stations on a set timetable, either working online or spending time with the teacher in person (Sharma et al., 2020). The rotating model of blended learning was shown to be a successful strategy for raising student achievement in a case study of IDEA Public Schools in Texas released by Dream Box (2019). IDEA students alternated between a standard classroom and learning laboratories where they used clever adaptive learning software to study arithmetic concepts. The study established that students became more engaged in their education, challenging themselves to acquire content that hadn't yet been covered in their math classes and became more active learners.

With the flex model, learning material is mostly supplied online (Hrastinski, 2019). Learning is generally self-guided as students autonomously study and practice new ideas in a digital environment, even while teachers are present to offer on-site guidance as required (Adhikary et al., 2019). Many tertiary institutions use the flex model as a strategy (Dziuban et al., 2005).

The self-blend model of blended learning allows students to enroll in classes that are not currently offered at their school (Lopes and Soares, 2018). While these students will attend regular schools, they also choose to enhance their education with distance-learning online courses. Students must have a high level of intrinsic desire for this integrated learning approach to be successful (DreamBox, 2019).

The last one is the online lab model which enables students to learn entirely online. However, the students need to move to a dedicated computer lab to complete the coursework (Saragih et al., 2020). The lab is under the supervision of resources (Ayob et al., 2020; Saied and Nasr, 2018). This not only enables schools to provide courses for which they lack instructors or sufficient instructors (DreamBox, 2019; Saied and Nasr, 2018), but it also enables students to study at their own speed and in a subject matter that fits them without interfering with other students' learning environments (DreamBox, 2019).

Issues with blended learning during COVID-19

The way that learning and education are structured has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (Baloran and Hernan, 2021). It had an impact on the approaches for instruction and evaluation (Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021). The pandemic also worsened educational inequality (Downey et al., 2019). Similarly, the impact of COVID-19 and the closure of schools varied from country to country, economy to economy and different backgrounds (Blaskó et al., 2022). Students from less advantaged backgrounds seemed to experience more significant learning loss during the COVID-19 period than students and schools from advantaged backgrounds (Seaman and Seaman, 2021). The variation in the impact could be attributed to differences in financial and non-financial support from parents, guardians, sponsors and the state (Hafiz et al., 2020). Other factors include the school attended, the resources, the nature and financial state of the school, the financial status and capacity of the parents and the digital skills and know-how of the students and instructors (Kumar, 2021).

The lockdowns and the adoption of online and blended learning affected the learning outcomes of students (Bordoloi et al., 2021) such as less time spent in learning, lack of learning motivation, changes in the way students interact and socialize with each other and symptoms of stress (Di Pietro, 2020; Al-Maskari et al., 2022). Issues with establishing blended learning also include insufficient or lack of support (Aytaç, 2021), a lack of time and resources for course creation, risks related to technology availability (Özüdoğru, 2021), the requirement for learning new teaching (Mishra et al., 2020), lack of technological skills a need for new teaching and technological abilities (Mishra et al., 2020; Özüdoğru, 2021) and reluctance from staff members to use technology to supplement or replace in-person instruction (Al-Maskari et al., 2022). Whether this resistance stems from skepticism about technology, a lack of supporting materials or a perception of poorer quality, undoubtedly affects how a blended learning strategy is implemented (Di Pietro, 2020). Other challenges include inexperience and unfamiliarity with the virtual and online environment on the part of either learners or instructors or both (Lo and Hew, 2022), inadequate infrastructure and inadequate training.

COVID-19 largely affected teaching and learning and ultimately (Agormedah et al., 2020), quality education (Elumalai et al., 2021; Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021). While many educational institutions were shut down during this period due to their inability to render their service, this affected the quality of education (Sahu, 2020; Tsolou et al., 2021). The shutdown of the educational institutions affected the contact hours (Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021) which later translated into affecting the quality of education negatively (Jacob et al., 2020). Admittedly, while the impact is realized to be negative, others tried to deploy mechanisms and strategies to improve the quality of education (Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021). Some of these strategies include the adoption of e-learning systems (Aboagye et al., 2021; Adzovie et al., 2020) and improving information delivery via e-libraries (Omeluzor et al., 2022) among others.

Methodology

The interpretivism research paradigm which advocate for the use of qualitative research was deployed in this study. According to Mohajan and Mohajan (2022), qualitative research enables researchers to make sense of reality, to describe and explain the social world and to develop explanatory models and theories. The use of the qualitative research method enabled the researcher to engage the participants in an interview process in order to explore and get empirical evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on the tertiary institutions in Ghana and the factors influencing the adoption of blended learning during the COVID-19. Qualitatively, the researcher collected and analyzed non-numerical data to understand concepts, opinions and experiences via in-depth interview into the phenomenon and generate new ideas for the research.

The study focused on 25 tertiary institutions accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC). These institutions were randomly selected to avoid any form of bias. From the 25 institutions, the registrars who are the chief administrators of the institutions and largely coordinate all the activities of the institutions were selected to serve as the direct participants. The researchers again made provision for any of the registrars to delegate the responsibility of serving as participants for the study should the registrar deem it fit to delegate. This enabled some of the registrars to nominate more competent participants to provide additional responses for the study. The registrars allowed the researcher of solicit for additional data from the officers in charge of blended learning and IT to augment the responses from the registrars.

The researcher relied on both primary and secondary sources to gather data for the studies. Data from earlier research on the topic and similar topics helped the researcher in gathering secondary data. This includes data from print journals, online academic databases, books and other allied sources that were considered useful for the study. The interview served as the main tool for the primary source of data. Indepth and face-to-face interview was conducted to elicit for data from the registrars and/or their reps for the study. The semi-structured interview Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data collected via the interview. This enabled the researcher to closely examine the interview data collected from the participants and to identify common themes, ideas and patterns of meaning that repeatedly came out. To avoid confirmation bias during the analysis, the researcher was guided by the six-step process of thematic content analysis: familiarization with the data; data coding; generating initial themes; reviewing and developing themes; refining, defining and naming themes; and producing the report. Again the inductive approach which allows data collected to guide the thematic analysis was used (Braun and Clarke, 2023).

Analysis

Impact of COVID-19 on the tertiary institution

The study first set out to find out how the COVID-19 pandemic affected tertiary institutions. It was realized from the study that all the tertiary institutions said the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected them. However, the extent of effect or impact varied from institution to institution. The researcher found out that the effect largely depended on the internal mechanisms or systems put in place and practiced at the tertiary institutions before the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The institutions with some established learning management systems (LMS) were able to mitigate the negative impact more swiftly than the institutions without LMS. It was discovered that just a handful of the tertiary institutions had LMS in place and being used before the COVID-19 pandemic while the majority of the institutions had no online or LMS in place before the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the participants expressed the following:

• Yes, the COVID-19 affected us negatively. However, we already had an LMS powered by Moodle in place that we were using. So, we were able to swiftly migrate teaching and learning online. This enabled us to minimize the negative impact of COVID-19 on our operation. We were able to somehow maintain the quality of teaching and learning.

• We practically had to shut down the university at the instruction of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) since we had nothing to do.

• The major source of funding and running the university is through fees. The closure of the university made it difficult to raise funds or collect fees from our students to run the university.

• Most of our students were unable to pay their fees which affected our operations. The main reason they gave was the collapse of their business or that of their parent or sponsors, or loss of job.

• When the universities were reopened after the nationwide lockdown and directive from the government, most of our students were unwilling to come back due to the fear of being infected with COVID-19. This led to high students’ attrition.

• We had to work on the mental health of some of our students by bringing in some counselors and psychologists which ended up increasing the operational cost of running the university. It was a necessary evil.

• Our academic calendar was distorted and it took lots of effort to restructure it to suit the new order of post-COVID. It ended up affecting the break and resting period for both students and staff of the university.

• Businesses within the university were affected during the COVID-19 lockdown. These businesses such as food courts or joints were unable to swiftly come to provide services to the students who returned. This also affected physical attendance at lectures.

• We were unable to pay our staff. While some of the staff were laid off, others' salaries were cut or reduced to enable the running of the university. This socially and economically affected them negatively.

• The COVID-19 exposed our weakness in terms of technological deployment. It took time and lots of resources to deploy some technological systems to aid teaching and learning at the university during and post-COVID-19.

• We realized that COVID-19 negatively affected educational quality in terms of quality of teaching and learning at the university. We were not ready to migrate from the traditional face-to-face to the use of technology to augment the traditional face-to-face.

• We were adversely affected by COVID-19 as we were unable to settle some of our financial obligations and loans.

These responses show that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected tertiary institutions in Ghana in terms of operations, funding and attrition, among others.

Blended learning tools

The deployment of tools and systems to aid blended learning and quality education was also assessed. It was established that most of the tools used for teaching and learning were open-sourced systems. They were able to deploy multiple digital systems. The commonest and most popular systems deployed to aid blended learning were:

LOOM, ZOOM, Microsoft team, google meet and WhatsApp

The other open-sourced systems used by the tertiary institution as reported by the participants include:

Facebook Live, YouTube, short messaging system (SMS), online library, Moodle, blackboard, Sakai, Instagram live, website, blogs, radio, television, LinkedIn, and Twitter

The participants further indicated that social media served as a vital tool for blended learning at tertiary institutions. Some of the participants said:

• Some of our lecturers used YouTube as a means of uploading lecture notes, teaching materials and teaching slides.

• The Facebook page of the university helped a lot in disseminating information and uploading some vital documents that the students and the general public need to know. We need to bring confidence in our students and the general public as to the measures in place to ensure academic quality. Hence, Facebook was constantly used to aid information dissemination and learning purposes.

• The social media system enabled us to reach out to most of our students faster as most of them are young and use the social media system a lot.

• We use the social media system to interact with our students.

• WhatsApp has a conference facility and this enabled us to easily communicate and collaborate with students.

These responses clearly show that in ensuring and sustaining academic and educational quality in the educational institutions, the institutions were able to deploy several technological systems to aid teaching, learning, quality and information dissemination which are mainly open-sourced systems.

Support for the blended learning approach

The blended learning approach can be successful if the effort is centered on giving support to users such as students and faculty. It is always expedient for management to formally and informally provide support for users expanding a blended learning approach. Against this backdrop, participants were asked to react to the available support for blended learning approaches in their various institutions. Their responses are as follows:

• There is the availability of the internet to aid information retrieval and access although it’s not always reliable.

• We have a computer laboratory to support blended learning. Although the computers are inadequate, the computers largely supported teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been able to increase the numbers since.

• There are information technology officers and a technical team ready to assist students with the use of learning management platforms to supplement the classroom face-to-face learning.

• We have set up a help desk to support both students and teachers while they use technologies and systems for blended learning.

• There is the availability of video tutorials on how to use the adopted learning management platform for learning.

• The University organizes training on blended learning and deployment of technological systems for the instructors and learners.

• The University normally seeks the opinion of users on the performance of the blended approach.

• Student leaders and their reps have been trained and oriented to assist their members and learners with the blended learning approach.

These responses show that tertiary institutions in Ghana have largely deployed some support systems for blended learning. Thus, when users receive adequate support in using any system it could enhance interaction and collaboration with their peers and instructors and thereby enhance their development of knowledge and skills in the course hence the use of blended learning will be successful.

Assessment of the relevance of the blended learning approach

Blended learning is currently trending among institutions due to its positive impact on both instructors and learners (Lu et al., 2018). In this regard, the researcher sought to find out the degree of acceptance, ease of use and usefulness of blended learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study disclosed that blended learning has become the most preferred choice of teaching and learning as compared to only traditional face-to-face learning; enhanced the teaching and learning experience; is more helpful, useful and easy to use; quizzes and assignments are preferred to be conducted via the online version of the blended learning; increased easy access to lecture materials; ensured flexibility of learning; more convenient for learning and instruction and facilitate independent learning and in a more relaxed environment; allowed effective and better interaction between instructors and students; created a common platform for learning and interaction; ensured self-motivation to learning; enabled the learner and instructor to gain extra skills and experiences outside the classroom; and increased engagement and submission of studies.

Some of the responses expressed and outlined by the participants are as follows:

• Blended learning brings about quality in education.

• In blended learning, learners are provided with learning materials in advance of an actual face-to-face class.

• Lecture notes or slides which are beneficial to learners and make blended learning a preferred mode of learning.

• It is vital in ensuring effective delivery whilst re-orientating instructors’ attitudes and practices.

• It reduces the burden in terms of time devotion to studies and travel distance for face-to-face classroom learning.

• Blended learning results in instructors being encouraged to communicate with their colleagues, share ideas and work collaboratively.

• Classroom learning supplemented with online learning management platforms enhances the learning experience.

• The students and learners can easily download their lecture materials from the online learning management platform.

• The instructors can upload lecture notes and assignments on the online learning system.

• the lecturers are able to conduct quizzes, tests and exams through the online system,

• the online learning management platform in addition to the classroom learning approach makes learning convenient, easy, flexible and interesting, and

• the blended approach is usually accompanied by quizzes or assignments, which students have to complete and then are not necessarily followed up in class.

These responses indicated a positive perception toward the adopted blended learning approach, as the majority of the responses were skewed positively. The perception of users of adopted blended learning determines the extent of its use. If users perceive the platforms as easy to use and yield fruitful outcomes then there is a high propensity that the extent of use will increase. Blended learning has proven to be a learning model that provides users with greater time flexibility and improved learning outcomes, improves issues around time management, increases student engagement in learning, adds flexibility in the teaching and learning environment and opportunities for continuous improvement.

Challenges associated with blended learning

Every learning approach is saddled with some inherent challenges, the onus depends on the adopters and their respective stakeholders to work assiduously to arrest such challenges to reduce their impact to the barest minimum and this in the short and long run ensures the smooth follow of the learning approach. Given this, the participants were asked to indicate the various challenges they think affect the blended learning approach. The responses are shown below:

• There is inadequate training on the use of blended learning.

• Sometimes students experience system errors and are unable to access the adopted supplemented learning management platforms.

• The online version lacks socialization and oral communication.

• Slow internet connectivity most often impedes the effective delivery of lessons.

• Inadequate funding to provide and expand access to education via the blended learning system.

• Inadequate support from management and leadership.

• Some members (instructors and learners) don’t have personal computers to access online lecture notes.

• Power outages sometimes deny access and use of the blended learning approach.

• Blended learning calls for self-discipline and commitment to personal learning and this is lacking in some of the learners.

• The university has no clear-cut policy on blended learning. As a result, some members of the university are skeptical about the adoption and usage.

• Most of the members are inexperience and unfamiliar with the online environment.

• The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) is yet to develop a policy and adoption of blended learning in universities in Ghana.

These responses show that the blended learning adoption during COVID-19 has not been smooth as it is impeded by some challenges despite the benefits and significant role it plays in teaching and learning. These challenges need to be attended to in other to get the full benefits of e-learning.

Discussion

The study first aimed to find out the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the institutions and measures put in place to manage it. It was revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic had a severe adverse effect and impact on most of the institutions. These institutions had no contingency plans in place for emergencies or pandemics such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As discovered by the study, some of the institutions had to shut down until the government came to their aid. This concurred with the findings of Putri et al. (2020), Anderson et al. (2021) and Donnelly et al. (2021). According to the literature, school closures due to COVID-19 have brought significant disruption to education in Indonesia (Putri et al., 2020) and across Ukraine and Europe (Donnelly et al., 2020). The measures deployed to curb and minimize the effect of COVID-19 on the tertiary institutions in Ghana as established in this study were the same measure Ukraine and other European countries deployed as indicated by Donnelly et al. (2021) and Putri et al. (2020). Anderson et al. (2021) further indicated that COVID-19 affected the health, mental and psychological wellness of the students and staff which called for support services for them in order to continue with their education.

It was again discovered that just a handful of the tertiary institutions had LMS in place and being used before the COVID-19 pandemic while the majority had no online or LMS in place before the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, some of the institutions were able to deploy measures and systems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings corroborate Chatterjee and Chakraborty (2021) and Putri et al. (2020). Putri et al. (2020) posit that the lack of technology and electronic systems and resources affected the running of schools in Indonesia during the COVID-19 pandemic until the schools were able to deploy some technological systems and resources. The same indications were established in this study as expressed by the participants. The deployment of LMS and online systems to facilitate teaching and learning during and post-COVID-19 at tertiary institutions in Ghana was commendable since it served as a foundation for this study. These were targeted at sustaining or ensuring continuity of teaching and learning, and quality of teaching and learning at the tertiary institutions.

The deployment of tools and systems to aid blended learning and quality education was also established as most of the tools used for teaching and learning were open-sourced systems such as LOOM, ZOOM, Microsoft Team, Google Meet, WhatsApp, Facebook Live, YouTube, short messaging system (SMS), online library, Moodle, blackboard, Sakai, Instagram live, website, blogs, radio, television, LinkedIn and Twitter. These findings corroborate the findings of Dei et al. (2022) and Ghounane (2020). Ghounane (2020) disclosed that Algerian students and teachers used applications such as ZOOM, Google Meet and social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp for teaching and learning during COVID-19. Dei et al. (2022) also revealed that WhatsApp is the most popular social media platform used by students for information dissemination, followed by Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube respectively. The study discovered a high level of acceptance, use and usefulness of the blended learning approach during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are in agreement with the study by Tagoe (2014), Oheneba-Sakyi and Amponsah (2018), Darko-Adjei (2018) and Sharpe et al. (2006). It is also in line with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which was adopted to underpin this study and suggests that users are enticed to use a digital platform if they perceive the platform to be beneficial to them. On the contrary, the study did not support the works of Derntl and Motschnig-Pitrik (2005) and Benson et al. (2022) in which negative perceptions were found with the adoption and use of a blended learning approach.

The perception of users of adopted blended learning determines the extent of its use. If users perceive the platforms as easy to use and yield fruitful outcomes then there is a high propensity that the extent of use will increase. Blended learning has proven to be a learning model that provides users with greater time flexibility and improved learning outcomes, improves issues around time management, increases student engagement in learning, adds flexibility in the teaching and learning environment and opportunities for continuous improvement. As posited by Graham (2013), blended learning provides pedagogical benefits such as increased learning effectiveness, satisfaction and efficiency. Zhang et al. (2022) also suggest that blended learning enhances pedagogy, flexibility, access, cost-effectiveness and resource use.

Again, the success of blended learning largely depends on the support given to the users. The feedback indicates that the management provided the necessary support toward the adoption and usage of the blended learning approach. These findings join forces with the works of Dei (2017), Dei (2018b), Gyamfi and Gyaase (2015), Aycock et al. (2002) and Chen et al. (2004) where they emphasized that when users received adequate support in using any system it could enhance interaction and collaboration with their peers and instructors and thereby enhance their development of knowledge and skills in the course and hence the use of blended learning will be successful. Thus, with the given support based on the responses, there is a high tendency that they will find it easy to adopt and use the blended learning system. These support systems put in place also eventually shaped the perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness as postulated by Davis (1993) in the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) which was adopted as the theory underpinning this study.

The study further assessed the relevance of blended learning. The relevance of blended learning has been discovered by many scholars just as this study. As indicated by the participants, blended learning has been useful to individual students, instructors and institutions at large. Blended learning is currently trending among institutions due to its positive impact on both instructors and learners (Lu et al., 2018). The responses clearly show that the deployment of blended learning has been good and well-accepted by the instructors and learners. These findings support the works of Oakley (2016) and Gedik et al. (2013). If adopted appropriately, then blended learning can turn higher education into a more flexible state to quickly adapt to contextual changes; cost-effectively. This calls for stakeholders to invest heavily in ensuring the quality of blended learning is always improved since it contributes to the extent of use and as such will help management to deliver learning effectively.

Every learning approach is saddled with some inherent challenges, the onus depends on the adopters and their respective stakeholders to work assiduously to arrest such challenges to reduce their impact to the barest minimum and this in the short and long run ensures the smooth follow of the learning approach. The study shows that the blended learning adoption during COVID-19 has not been smooth as it is impeded by some challenges despite the benefits and significant role it plays in teaching and learning. These findings are in agreement with the works of Dei (2018a, 2020 and Darko-Adjei, 2018). There is no Gainsaying that every system in one way or another is saddled with some challenges be it technical or conceptual challenges. And until such challenges are reduced, the system will not yield its intended purposes. The study has clearly indicated that the blended learning approach has numerous phenomenal benefits however if the inherent challenges are not reduced, its intended purpose may not be attained.

Conclusion

In general, the deployment of the blended learning approach during the COVID-19 pandemic looks progressive as it provides a common platform for interaction between students, lecturers and instructors irrespective of the geographical area and time of the day, positive attitude toward the use of blended learning approach and approaches. Despite the devastating effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tertiary institutions in Ghana, these same institutions were able to deploy some technological systems, mechanisms and support strategies to sustain teaching and learning. These mechanisms and systems largely helped the tertiary institutions in Ghana to keep rendering services and operate as teaching and learning institutions. Also, a positive perception of the adoption, use and usefulness of the blended learning approach was revealed. However, the blended learning approach was handicapped by challenges.

As the world’s experience is moving toward a new normal due to the novel COVID-19, the use of an LMS and technological system to supplement traditional classroom teaching and learning cannot be overemphasized. In that spectrum, educational institutions, policymakers and all other stakeholders in the educational field should work with a concerted effort to harness and deploy online learning systems that will augment the conventional mode of learning with the aim of enriching teaching and learning.

The study further presents a set of recommendations that can help in integrating technologies and e-learning to complement traditional face-to-face teaching and learning based on the findings:

• Tertiary institutions should focus on investing in technological systems to support online and blended learning.

• Teachers and learners should be trained on the use of online and blended learning systems and promote the use of LMS and platforms like Moodle and Blackboard, and applications like Google Meet and ZOOM, among others.

• Internet connectivity and bandwidth should be increased on the campuses for effective delivery of lessons.

• Set up a dedicated support unit to assist all online and blended learning and technological issues.

• The regulatory body, GTEC, should develop policies on the adoption and use of blended learning to create a common platform and protocol for all online and blended learning activities in Ghana.

• The universities must develop a policy and framework for the adoption and use of technologies and systems for blended learning.

Figures

Figure 1.

Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)