Hybrid Courses and Their Impact on Student and Classroom Performance

A Case Study at the University of Virginia

Authors

  • Emily E. Scida University of Virginia
  • Rachel E. Saury University of Virginia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v23i3.517-531

Keywords:

Hybrid Course, Computer-based Instruction, Technology-enhanced Course

Abstract

The University of Virginia's (UVA) Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese created two new hybrid courses for elementary Spanish which supplement 3 hours a week of class time with 2 hours of mandatory, web-based practice activities to respond to a need to make better use of personnel resources at the university. This article reports on the results of a pilot project comparing the impact of the hybrid course model versus the traditional classroom model on student grades. We also conducted two surveys of students and Teaching Assistants about the perceived impact of web-based grammar and vocabulary drills on in-class activities and student performance. The studies described here, albeit small, support the findings of more extensive surveys of hybrid language courses. We posit that the computer can be well used in hybrid language courses at the level of routinized, lower level skills of cognition while supporting higher level functions, such as communication and writing.

Author Biographies

  • Emily E. Scida, University of Virginia

    Emily E. Scida is Associate Professor of Spanish, Director of the Linguistics Program, and Director of the Spanish and Italian Language Programs. She holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Her areas of research include applied linguistics, comparative Romance linguistics, historical syntax, dialectology, and relational grammar. In addition to teaching courses in Spanish linguistics and in foreign language pedagogy, she is Director of the Summer Language Institute for Spanish and of the Spanish for Health Care Professionals Summer Program. Professor Scida was selected as a 2001-2002 University of Virginia Teaching Fellow, and in 2005-2006 she was awarded a Teaching + Technology Initiative Fellowship. Her book, The Inflected Infinitive in the Romance Languages, was published by Routledge in 2004.

  • Rachel E. Saury, University of Virginia

    Rachel E. Saury is Lecturer in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. She holds a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in Russian Studies, an M.A. in Soviet Studies and a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Virginia. She was Director of the Language Learning Center at James Madison University prior to becoming the Director of the Arts & Sciences Center for Instructional Technologies at the University of Virginia. She has 10 years of experience teaching Russian language and currently teaches courses in violence and peace studies. She has published extensively in teaching technologies in journals and magazines such as the IALL Journal and Change.

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Published

2013-01-14

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Section

Articles

How to Cite

Scida, E., & Saury, R. (2013). Hybrid Courses and Their Impact on Student and Classroom Performance: A Case Study at the University of Virginia. CALICO Journal, 23(3), 517-531. https://doi.org/10.1558/cj.v23i3.517-531