Examining student satisfaction and gender differences in technology-supported, blended learning

Recently, blended learning has become popular in higher education. In this study, we aim to investigate influential factors that could impact student learning in this young and relatively immature environment. Factors from three perspectives - students themselves, instructors, and institutional support - were examined. Specifically, these factors are students' computer self-efficacy, instructor characteristics, and facilitating conditions. A research model was developed to systematically assess their impacts on students' perceived accomplishment, perceived enjoyment, and satisfaction toward the blended class. We also explored the gender differences by testing the research model on the two genders respectively. Interestingly, we found that for female students all three factors had significant impacts on their perceived accomplishment and perceived enjoyment, which in turn significantly impacted their learning satisfaction; however, for male students, no significant impact was found from computer self-efficacy to either perceived accomplishment or perceived enjoyment (the other two factors were significant).