From Blended Learning to Learning Efficiency: The Mediating Role of Learning Flexibility and the Boundary Condition of Digital Readiness

Abstract

Blended learning is now the default delivery mode in much of higher education, but the evidence for its effect on learning efficiency remains heterogeneous, and the mechanism is rarely specified. This study tests a conditional-process model in which learning flexibility mediates the relationship between blended learning and learning efficiency, and digital readiness moderates the direct path. Survey data from 355 undergraduate and postgraduate students at a Chinese university were analysed with PLS-SEM and 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The four measures were adapted from published source instruments — the blended-learning formulation of Garrison and Kanuka and the flexibility dimension identified in the blended-learning design literature, the online-learning-readiness instrument, and self-regulated-learning items — and, because they were adapted rather than reproduced, were submitted to expert content validation before administration (7 experts, 39 items, S-CVI/Ave = 0.923). Blended learning predicted learning efficiency directly (β = 0.125, t = 2.81) and indirectly through learning flexibility (β = 0.332), giving a total effect of 0.457, of which 72.7% is carried by flexibility; the indirect effect is smaller than the total, as partial mediation requires. Digital readiness moderated the direct path positively (β = 0.138, t = 4.78) and also had a direct effect on efficiency (β = 0.223). The model explained 56.1% of the variance in learning efficiency. Social significance: the results identify flexibility, not delivery mode, as the operative mechanism, and digital readiness as the condition under which blended provision pays off — which bears directly on whether institutions should invest in more blended courses or in preparing students to use them.