Effect of blended learning environment on transfer of learning: an experimental study

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of the blended learning and face-to-face learning on students' academic achievements and transfer of learning. The first aim of the study is to analyse the students' academic achievements to determine the change of theoretical knowledge in terms of the instructional method applied in this study. However, students' performances during the learning process are not always a good indicator. Therefore, the second aim of the study is to examine transferring students' theoretical knowledge to their educational multimedia projects. For this purpose, 14 weeks of pre- and post-test experimental study is designed. The study is administered through an educational technology course in which students learn how to develop educational multimedia materials. The participants are undergraduate pre-service teachers; they are assigned randomly to the experimental and control group. While the experimental group has both online and classroom sessions, the control group has only face-to-face classroom sessions. Although there is no significant difference between the groups in terms of academic achievement, the students in the blended group are more successful in transferring their knowledge to their projects than the ones in the face-to-face group. In conclusion, the results show that the blended learning approach has a positive effect on the transfer of learning.