The Relationships Between Modality, Peer Instruction Discussion, and Class Sentiment in Hybrid Courses
Although hybrid courses have become increasingly common in higher education, it remains uncertain whether a student's experience of a course is consistent between in-person and online modalities. To investigate this, we analyzed student modality and discussion data from the Spring 2023 offering of an elective data science course where students are allowed to attend each lecture in person or synchronously online. Our analysis revealed that there were, counter-intuitively, no statistically significant effects between students' modality mixes alone and their feelings of community and learning in the course. Rather, discussing peer instruction questions with others, particularly while attending class in person, was positively related with stronger feelings of community. However, we did not find a statistically significant relationship between students' discussions and perceptions of whether their modality mix supported their learning.
