The FEU Public Policy Center is pleased to share its upcoming discussion paper on students’ preferences toward hybrid learning in Philippine higher education, using evidence from the 2022 College Experience Survey (CES).
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of hybrid learning across Philippine higher education institutions, while also amplifying long-standing constraints in access, infrastructure, and pedagogical readiness. Beyond technology-related constraints, however, less is known about what shapes students’ attitudes toward hybrid learning as institutions move from crisis-driven remote delivery to more stable blended modalities.
Using data from a probability sample of 3,318 students across 15 Philippine higher education institutions, the study examines factors influencing students’ hybrid-learning preferences through survey-weighted ordinal logistic regression. It relates preferences for on-campus learning to predictors associated with technology, pedagogy, and mental health.
The findings show that 40.1% of students prefer a mid-range hybrid setup involving three days of face-to-face classes. The importance of faculty interaction emerges as the strongest predictor, with students who value it being nearly 19 times more likely to prefer more in-person days. Technological factors show mixed patterns, while mental health concerns, including COVID-19 anxiety, significantly reduce preference for on-campus learning. Measures of student autonomy and self-regulation were not robust predictors after controlling for other factors.
Overall, the paper challenges infrastructure-centric assumptions about hybrid learning and suggests that policy efforts should prioritize faculty-student engagement and pedagogical quality to improve students’ attitudes toward hybrid learning in the Philippines.
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