Surveys reveal student, faculty discontent with hybrid learning

In surveys conducted by Chapman University’s Senate Executive Board, students and faculty expressed a strong preference against a hybrid model of learning. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

Statistics don’t lie; rather, people lie using statistics. That’s a motto Keith Weber, Chapman’s director of Health and Strategic Communication, likes to say. 

As a professor at the helm of a Nov. 30 student learning method survey developed alongside Chapman’s Senate Executive Board, it’s also a motto Weber preaches when discussing how the university administration has conveyed a community desire to return to in-person classes. 

It has been postulated by multiple sources — The Panther’s own poll and Provost Glenn Pfeiffer  — that approximately 35% of Chapman students want to return to campus. That figure has been repeatedly cited among other bases for demonstrating prospective interest for in-person instruction, particularly during an Oct. 28 town hall, Weber said. Yet, there’s a flip side to that coin. 

“When we say, ‘lots of students want to be back because 35% said they want to be back' ... well, that’s true, but that also means that about two-thirds of the students say they don’t want to be back on campus,” Weber said. “So, I kind of feel like that was a little bit of a misrepresentation.” 

Weber and other faculty felt the need for more specific quantitative data to determine how instruction could best be tailored to fit student needs. As such, Weber’s survey and a seperate Nov. 30 faculty survey conducted by Faculty Senate President Alison McKenzie were developed to evaluate the effectiveness of different learning modes during the pandemic.

Weber and McKenzie found a clear discrepancy between underclassmen and upperclassmen in terms of the type of education they preferred. In the student survey, 56% of freshmen respondents said they’d prefer some type of in-person learning, while 63% of juniors and seniors said they’d prefer online-only instruction. Thus, the two believed faculty could individually center their classes around that knowledge. 

“We really wanted to drill down and get a little bit more specificity so that faculty could figure out how to tailor their classes accordingly,” McKenzie said. “It was looking like one size wasn’t going to fit all.”

Most faculty are required to return to campus after spring break to offer hybrid lectures, unless exempt due to preexisting health conditions, Pfeiffer told The Panther Feb. 17. Yet data obtained through the Senate Executive Board surveys showed that both students and faculty expressed negativity toward hybrid learning in a remote setting. This setting is defined as some students attending a class in-person while other students attend the same class online. 

Out of 328 faculty surveyed, 52.4% prefer to stay remote if in-person instruction was offered in the spring, with 15.5% preferring to be fully in person and only 3.3% preferring teaching hybrid classes with students both online and in-person. Responses were similar among 1003 students surveyed, with 47% wanting to attend classes solely virtually with no hybrid option, 36% preferring to attend hybrid courses in-person and just 7% preferring a hybrid learning model. 

Max Lopez, a senior political science and peace studies double major, told The Panther Feb. 17 that his girlfriend, Shreya Sheth, had returned briefly in-person to one of her classes in the fall at Chapman and had a rough experience. Sheth declined to comment. 

“It didn’t work for anybody,” Lopez said of Sheth’s experience. “The people on Zoom, it was hard for them to hear, and the people in-person were having to accommodate the same thing.”

A separate Senate Executive Board survey, titled “Teaching in Challenging Times,” accumulated anonymous open responses from faculty on what extra measures they were taking to support student learning. Some touched on the difficulty of teaching hybrid classes in their responses due to the need to facilitate learning for both students attending remotely and students attending in-person.

“What is particularly challenging is trying to engage students online (about 90% of the class), the few students attending in the classroom, working with the computer and video technology, and all while wearing a mask and trying to concentrate on the topic at hand,” one response read. “It would be easier to teach my classes sitting atop a flagpole.” 

In a Feb. 16 interview with The Panther, Gordon Babst, a professor in the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, called the hybrid model “Kafkaesque” — a phrase defined by Merriam-Webster as “having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre or illogical quality.”

“The solution to (student disconnect) that was recommended to us … is that the students (who come to class in-person) should open their laptops and go on Zoom,” Babst said. “That way they’d all be in the same sort of arena. And to me, that is absurd.”

Pfeiffer acknowledged that hybrid learning was a difficult model, but if the university wanted to provide an in-person learning option for the students that desired it, that was the best option, he said. 

“I know a lot of faculty have done a phenomenal job of (delivering) their classes under less than ideal circumstances,” Pfeiffer wrote to The Panther in a March 14 email. “I also know that there are a number of students who have not done well in a remote environment. We need to address the needs of those students as well as the needs of the students who are comfortable with remote instruction.”

Weber said he felt the university could be doing a better job of emphasizing how dedicated and hardworking its faculty had been during the course of the pandemic. About 87% of respondents in the Senate Executive Board’s faculty survey noted their workload had increased during the pandemic, and Weber told The Panther he was “amazed” by the effort he noticed colleagues and others were putting into their academia. 

“I can tell you from the faculty perspective, we’re exhausted. I mean, we are completely burnt (out) at this point in time,” Weber said. “As a faculty member, it feels as though there is a narrative being pushed that everyone needs to be back in the classroom because faculty are not doing the right things online ... In this, we are underselling our own faculty.”

Travis Bartosh, a professor in the School of Communication who oversees Chapman Radio, told The Panther he wakes up at 6 a.m. every morning and starts his day by inputting students’ recordings at the radio station. Additionally, he’s experimented with audio editing in his lectures to create experiences he calls “lecturecasts,” including sound effects such as air horns to dispel Zoom fatigue for students. 

“I’ve got a segment that I call ‘The Juice,’ which is like the juiciest part of the lecture;  it’s got its own sound effect intro and everything,” Bartosh said. “I’d be curious to know how many professors are including air horns in their lectures.”

Ultimately, many professors like Bartosh — whether of their own volition or sheer necessity — have put extra hours into their teaching, and McKenzie and Weber both felt that effort should be highlighted.

“It's important to remember none of us were hired to be remote online instructors,” McKenzie said. “There's been a learning curve, and it's been easier for some than others, and some courses lend themselves better to (remote learning) than others.”