Evaluation of the mixed-mode teaching design upon students’ learning satisfaction and academic performance in an introductory economics course

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the various facets of higher education globally. With the migration to online teaching happening at an unprecedented rate, educators are challenged in transforming the way they create opportunities for students’ learning. Specifically, in Australia, education providers have increasingly offered their courses in a dual-mode setting, making them available for both online and face-to-face students. This paper presents the design of a specific type of dual-mode teaching, referred to as mixed-mode teaching used in an introductory economics course at X University. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the mixed-mode teaching in creating an equitable learning experience for the online and face-to-face groups of students enroled in the course. Such an approach should then translate into there being no significant difference found in the academic performance of the two cohorts. In this study, we used the non-parametric Wilcoxon test and Kruskal-Wallis test to verify if a significant difference exists in learning satisfaction. Further, we utilised regression with dummies, and four different approaches of propensity score matching estimation in excluding self-selection bias, to evaluate differences in academic performance. Our results suggest no statistically significant differences in both the learning experiences and academic performances of our two groups of students. At a time when higher education is facing ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic, these findings offer useful insights for economics educators as well as those in higher education about how to enhance students’ academic performance and learning experience through more equitable, consistent course design.