Arab Educational Information Network

Abstract Hybrid courses were developed to maintain the advantages associated with distance learning, while solving the problem of learner-instructor interaction. This would indicate that successful learner-instructor interaction is one of the core features of this type of class which enables it to best serve the learner. To verify the above, a descriptive, qualitative case study was designed to investigate students' perceptions of interaction (student-instructor and student-student) in a hybrid foreign language Arabic course, taking into account their affective domain. The structure of the hybrid course which was investigated consisted of a videoconferencing session conducted by the main teacher, followed by a face to face class conducted by a local assistant teacher. Both quantitative and qualitative tools were used in this study. The quantitative tool was the close-ended questions of the questionnaire, while the qualitative instruments were its open-ended items and the researcher's classroom observations. The results showed that although students perceived that there was enough interaction in the hybrid course, relatively less student-instructor interaction was present in the videoconferencing part of the course compared to its traditional section. This could be attributed to the technical difficulties they had to deal with in the videoconferencing section. Another factor may be related to the students' misconceptions about the role of the instructor in the different sections of the hybrid course. Alternatively, the group reported that the hybrid nature of the course did not inhibit their student-student interaction. (Author's abstract)