Unlocking students’ motivation in the blended higher education classroom: Lecturers’ perspectives

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2020. Blended learning is growing at a tremendous pace transforming higher education. This means that more and more universities integrate online and face-to-face components into their courses. Previous studies have indicated that students may find it hard to be motivated in the blended environment, while the leadership approaches make their way into traditional higher education classroom, positively affecting students’ motivation. However, relatively little attention has been paid to teachers as leaders in the blended classroom. Therefore, the main motivation behind this article is to explore the assumption that an educator in blended learning can play a crucial role in students’ motivation. Using a qualitative research design, this small-scale study collects rich data comprising 8 interviews with higher education teachers from one large university in the UK. The results show contrasting views of participants on the level of learners’ motivation in the blended context. Furthermore, drawing on the theory of situational leadership, the discussion suggests that educators may adopt the delegating style of leadership while teaching quite motivated students who mostly need autonomy and challenging materials. Whereas, students who lack motivation particularly require a supporting leadership style involving two utterly important factors such as online presence and the development of student-teacher relationships.