Brian K. McFarlin
Advan Physiol Educ 32:86-91, 2008. doi:10.1152/advan.00066.2007
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Adv Physiol Educ 32: 86–91, 2008;
doi:10.1152/advan.00066.2007.
Teaching With Technology
Hybrid lecture-online format increases student grades in an undergraduate
exercise physiology course at a large urban university
Brian K. McFarlin
Laboratory of Integrated Physiology, Department of Health and Human Performance, and Texas Obesity Research Center,
University of Houston, Houston, Texas
Submitted 7 August 2007; accepted in final form 21 November 2007
physiology education; WebCT; exercise science
have been instrumental
in providing students a custom-tailored learning environment.
Some of these advanced include hybrid learning styles that
combine online, self-paced content with traditional classroom
lectures (2–5, 7). The online delivery format has evolved
considerably over the past 10 years. Recently, classroom management software (i.e., WebCT, Blackboard, eClassrooms,
etc.) has become very popular, and the majority of college
campuses utilize this technology. Online course delivery can
be enhanced by the addition of content that a student can
complete in a self-paced manner (2, 8, 11). Also, a variety of
learning games and other digital media can be employed to
facilitate comprehension and learning. Beyond the online environment, several advances have been made in the traditional
classroom environment, including the use of interactive inclass response systems (6, 10). In-class response systems allow
instructors to track student understanding in large courses in a
real-time manner.
The key objective of the present study was to describe the
method employed for modifying a traditional lecture-based
upper-division exercise physiology course (KIN 3306) at a
large urban university. It was hypothesized that the hybrid
ADVANCES IN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: B. K. McFarlin,
Dept. of Health and Human Performance, Univ. of Houston, 3855 Holman St.,
104U Garrison, Houston, TX 77204-6015 (e-mail: bmcfarlin@uh.edu).
86
format would be associated with a significant increase in
student academic performance. The purpose of this investigation was to compare final student grades in the same exercise
physiology course taught in either a traditional or hybrid
format.
Program Description
Course data utilized. To prepare the present report, student
grade data were used from the following six semesters of KIN
3306 (Physiology of Human Performance): Fall 2004 (traditional format, n ⫽ 117 students), Spring 2005 (traditional
format, n ⫽ 94), Summer 2005 (traditional format, n ⫽ 41),
Fall 2005 (traditional format, n ⫽ 94), Summer 2006 (transition format, n ⫽ 48), Fall 2006 (hybrid format, n ⫽ 191), and
Summer 2007 (hybrid format, n ⫽ 73). The sample set included 346 students who took the course in a traditional
face-to-face lecture format and 312 students who took the
course in a hybrid lecture-online format. The hybrid design
used included 1.5 h/wk online and an additional 1.5 h/wk in a
traditional classroom setting. The details of the two course
formats are described in detail below (Fig. 1). All exams used
the same question bank in each format of the course. The lead
instructor for all course sections included in this sample was
the author (B. K. McFarlin).
Traditional class format. In this course format, students
attended two 1.5-h lectures/wk in a traditional classroom designed to hold between 100 and 200 students. Lectures were
formatted such that two to three lectures were dedicated to each
topic and broken down as follows: one lecture for general,
introductory material and the remaining lectures for advanced
material related to the particular exercise physiology topic.
Course lectures were administered using PowerPoint slides
(Microsoft, Redmond, WA) and Flash (Macromedia, San Jose,
CA) media-based animations whenever possible. Common
Flash animations included those of skeletal muscle contraction,
nerve conduction, heart contraction, etc. These animations
were also employed in the hybrid format. As is common in a
course with a large number of students enrolled, there was
minimal interaction (in terms of questions being asked) between the lead professor and students. The course was scheduled at a similar time each semester (typically between 1000
and 1200 hours). The course grade was determined using a
norm-referenced system based on the student’s final point total.
In this course, the grade distribution was typically skewed to
the left. Skewness was removed by centering the grades on a
normal scale, using the average point total and SD. Points were
accumulated as follows: exam 1 (120 points), exam 2 (120
points), exam 3 (120 points), and attendance (50 points) for a
total of 410 points.
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McFarlin BK. Hybrid lecture-online format increases student
grades in an undergraduate exercise physiology course at a large
urban university. Adv Physiol Educ 32: 86–91, 2008; doi:10.1152/
advan.00066.2007.—Hybrid courses allow students additional exposure to course content that is not possible in a traditional classroom
environment. This exposure may lead to an improvement in academic
performance. In this report, I describe the transition of a large
undergraduate exercise physiology course from a traditional lecture
format to a hybrid lecture-online format. A total of 658 final grades
(traditional ⫽ 346, hybrid ⫽ 312) was used to evaluate the effect of
course format on academic performance. The hybrid online portion
was delivered using WebCT Vista, enhanced with various instructional technologies. The hybrid lecture portion was enhanced with an
in-class response system. PowerPoint files were used to distribute
in-class lectures in both formats of the course. Final student grades
were 9.9% higher (83% of the increase due to an increase in the exam
grade) when the course was administered in a hybrid format (P ⫽
0.01), which translated to a one letter grade increase on a standard
grading scale. Transition from a traditional lecture format to a hybrid
format significantly enhanced student learning; presumably, this increase is due to the fact that students were able to increase their
exposure to course content via access to material on WebCT.
Teaching With Technology
HYBRID EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY COURSE
Fig. 1. Comparison of instructional components of the traditional and hybrid
formats for KIN 3306 (Physiology of Human Performance).
Pal interface was to better engage the students when they
loaded the WebCT homepage by providing a face to go with
the class. Once the basic WebCT site was created, the next
objective was to create, produce, and organize course material.
It was determined that it would be ideal to offer students access
to online lectures that provided basic material in support of
advanced topics, which would be covered during the in-class
lectures. To accomplish this task, PowerPoint files similar to
what would be presented during the in-class lectures were
created and voice narrated using Articulate Studio (New York,
NY) (Fig. 3). The process of creating the online lectures was
as follows: 1) develop the rough storyboard, 2) make the slides,
3) write the spoken script, 4) record the audio dialogue, 5) link
the audio portion to PowerPoint animations using Articulate
Studio, 6) incorporate the learning games, 7) build the practice
SCORM (industry standard term for web-based learning module) module, 8) test in the product in WebCT, 9) correct any
issues noted during the test in WebCT, 10) rebuild the package
into a corrected SCORM module, and 11) load the final module
onto WebCT. The module was also produced into a downloadable storyboard that was also uploaded to WebCT in MS Word
format. One major advantage of the Articulate software is that
it enhances the appearance of standard PowerPoint files by
allowing the course designer to add self-test questions, provide
a search function, and provide a navigable menu. A conservative estimate is that it took between 16 and 20 h to create,
narrate, and publish each online lecture for this course. Once
students completed the online lecture, they were required to
take a WebCT quiz over the topic. They were allowed two
attempts to take each quiz, and thus the majority of students got
between 90% and 100% of the points on these assignments.
The purpose of allowing two attempts was to make sure that
the students learned and understood all the material that was
covered in the online lecture.
The key objective of the online component of this course
was to provide students the opportunity to prepare for in-class
lectures by watching online lectures in a self-paced format.
Once a baseline level of knowledge was established, the
students were prepared for advanced material that would be
Fig. 2. Screenshot of the WebCT Vista site
for the hybrid format of KIN3306 (Physiology of Human Performance). A: course specific WebCT banners; B: position of the
SitePal character that was produced for the
author on behalf of Odd Cast (New York,
NY). The character provides an interactive
means to disseminate course announcements. It will be expanded in the future to
serve as an interactive answer query tool.
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Hybrid course format. One reason that we chose to transition from a traditional format to a hybrid format was to respond
to previous comments given by students during formal course
evaluations. Students frequently reported that the course did
not take advantage of current instructional technologies, which
may allow additional access to course content. To address
these concerns, KIN 3306 was transitioned to a hybrid format
during the Summer 2006 session. A hybrid course is considered to offer 50% of the instruction in a traditional manner and
50% in an online manner. For the transition, the introductory,
general lectures for each topic (described above) were moved
to WebCT for delivery. The first stage of this process was to
identify which technologies would be included in the first
hybrid offering. It was decided that the online portion of the
course would be administered via WebCT Vista (Washington,
DC) because this is the software standardized for our campus.
The WebCT environment was customized for this class using
course-specific banners (Fig. 2A) and an interactive SitePal
avatar on the homepage to provide course announcements (Fig.
2B). The SitePal character was created by OddCast (New York,
NY) from a digital picture of the author. I acknowledge that
course announcements could have been easily provided as only
text announcements; however, the objective of using the Site-
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Teaching With Technology
88
HYBRID EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY COURSE
covered during the in-class lectures. To enhance the traditional
classroom experience, we employed a radio frequency (RF)
in-class response system (Higher Ed Generation 2, e-Instruction, Denton, TX). This system was used to track both student
comprehension and attendance. At the beginning of each class
meeting, students were asked to answer advanced application
questions from the previous lecture (these questions were
similar in structure to the exam questions). At the conclusion of
each lecture, students were asked to answer basic knowledge
questions that pertained to the lecture that they had just heard.
Even though the students in the hybrid format did not complete
clicker questions, which were on the examinations, the nature
of the clicker questions may have biased them toward performing better on exams. In addition to use of the in-class response
system, all lecture audio was uploaded to WebCT for download in either a .WMA or .MP3 format. Lecture audio was
available to students who attended in-class meetings as an
incentive to attend class. It is important to note that both course
formats received the same information; however, the students
in the hybrid format were provided the content in a technologically rich way. The course grade was determined using the
same norm-referenced system described above in the traditional class format. Points were accumulated as follows: exam
1 (120 points), exam 2 (120 points), online quizzes (60 points),
in-class responses (60 points), and attendance (50 points) for a
total of 410 points.
Statistical analysis of course effectiveness. The key outcome
measures were the grade on exam 1, the grade on exam 2, and
the final grade for each semester the course was taught. We
chose not to use the grade for exam 3 because only the
traditional format had three exam grades. Prior to formal
statistical testing, data were checked for normality and constant
error variance using residual-predicted and quantile-quantile
plotting. Grade data were analyzed using a 2 (delivery
format: traditional or hybrid) ⫻ 3 (semester: Fall, Spring, or
Summer) ANOVA. Significance was set at P ⬍ 0.05. The
location of significant effects was determined using multiple
Student t-tests with a Bonferroni correction for multiple
comparisons. All data are reported as means ⫾ SE.
Program Evaluation
Descriptives. Grades from a total of 658 students who took
KIN 3306 (Physiology of Human Performance) between August 2004 and August 2007 were used in the present investigation. All of these semesters were taught by the same instructor (B. K. McFarlin). For the present investigation, there were
346 students who took the traditional course format and 312
students who took the hybrid course format. A breakdown by
semester revealed that 402 students took the course in the Fall,
94 students in the Spring, and 162 students in the Summer.
Basic descriptive statistics for each semester are presented in
Table 1.
Exam grade comparisons. A significant semester ⫻ format
interaction was found for exam 1 grades (P ⬍ 0.01). Exam 1
grades for the hybrid formate were 10.5% (12.6 points) higher
than for the traditional format. For exam 2 grades, significant
main effects were found for semester (P ⬍ 0.01) and format
(P ⬍ 0.01). Exam 2 grades for the hybrid format were 17.6%
(21.2 points) higher than for the traditional format. Exam 2
grades in the Summer were significant greater than those in the
Fall (⫺20.0) or Spring (⫺18.1). Summing the two exam grades
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Fig. 3. Screenshot of an introductory, online lecture for the hybrid version of KIN 3306 (Physiology of Human Performance). This lecture was produced using
PowerPoint (Washington, DC), voiceover narration, and Articulate Studio (New York, NY). Self-test questions (not shown) were embedded in the lectures to
allow students to review as they proceeded.
Teaching With Technology
HYBRID EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY COURSE
89
Table 1. Student breakdown by academic classification
Traditional
Total number of students
Number of seniors
Number of juniors
Number of sophomores
Number of freshman
Number of other students
Hybrid
Fall 2004
Spring 2005
Summer 2005
Fall 2005
Summer 2006
Fall 2006
Summer 2007
117
38
56
16
0
7
94
30
56
7
0
1
41
18
13
5
0
5
94
39
46
6
1
2
48
23
21
3
0
1
191
62
87
39
0
3
73
43
23
5
0
2
Total sample size was 658 students (traditional ⫽ 346 and hybrid ⫽ 312).
together shows that, on average, students in the hybrid format
earned exam grades that were 14.0% (33.8 points) higher than
students that took the traditional format.
Final Grade (Point Total)
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is one of the first investigations to
report the structure utilized to transition a large undergraduate
exercise physiology course from a traditional format to a
Fig. 4. A: average final grades for KIN 3306
(Physiology of Human Performance) during
various semesters. B: graph of final grades
collapsed by delivery methods. The total
sample size contained 658 students (traditional ⫽ 346, hybrid ⫽ 312) over 7 semesters between August 2004 and August 2007.
Values are means ⫾ SE. *Hybrid format
was significantly greater than the traditional
format (P ⬍ 0.05).
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A significant semester ⫻ format interaction was found for
final course grades (P ⫽ 0.01; Fig. 4). On average, students in
the hybrid format of the course earned final grades that were 9.9%
(40.7 points) higher than students in the traditional format (Fig.
3B). Neither Fall-hybrid nor Summer-hybrid was different than
each other. The SD for the HYBD course was 38.8; thus, an
increase in the final grade total of 40.7 points was equivalent to
a one letter grade improvement.
Teaching With Technology
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HYBRID EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY COURSE
improvement in the final point total was due to exams. One of
the main reasons that I selected to use WebCT to deliver the
online component is that it is the standard at my university and
at other universities across the nation. I also enjoyed using
WebCT because you do not need to have extensive experience
writing HTML code but can take advantage of HTML code
using the built-in Java interface. Throughout the process of
transitioning this course, I experienced a number of setbacks
with the implementation of the technology; however, in the
end, I expanded my own instructional capacities and provided
a better learning experience to my students. As a result of my
experiences and improvement in student grades, I now only
offer KIN 3306 in a hybrid format.
In the present evaluation, it has been demonstrated that a
hybrid formatted course significantly improved student grades.
One key to the effective use of instruction technology is to
always remain on the cutting edge. To address this, two areas
of focus have been developed to be implemented in future
semesters of this course. First, the current use of the SitePal
interface will be expanded so that it is more than just an
announcement tool. I am presently working with the SitePal
support team to develop an online, interactive question assistant that students can query to get answers to basic course
structure as well as content-related questions. It is envisioned
that the development of this technology will allow the creation
of “virtual teaching assistants” whose knowledge can be expanded as necessary in the future. Second, the use of podcasting will be expanded. Specifically, two new iTunes RSS
streams will be developed. One stream will be devoted to
the dissemination of course lecture audio (in addition to the
WebCT download). The second stream will be used to relay
weekly course announcements. It is anticipated that the addition of these technologies in addition to the current hybrid
structure will further improve student learning and translate to
an improvement in academic performance.
In today’s learning environment, the effective use of instructional technology provides a means to provide students with
immediate, on-demand access to course content. In large,
traditional lecture courses, customization is not possible because of the time burden that it places on the instructor. Hybrid
and online courses are useful because they eliminate this
burden. The key to effective implementation and utilization of
instructional technology is to keep the focus on student-related
outcomes and learning. This was the objective of the present
investigation and will continue to be a focus in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank my coinstructor (Dr. Daniel A. Martinez), who helped teach this
course during the Fall 2006 semester. His effort afforded me the release time
to develop the online content described above. I also thank the numerous
students who have assisted my efforts during the semesters listed above,
including Jennifer Davis, Alexander Hutchison, and Michael Kueht.
GRANTS
This project was funded in part by a Faculty Development Initiative B grant
awarded to Drs. McFarlin (primary investigator), Layne, Kurz, and Martinez
by the University of Houston Office of Education Technology and University
Outreach in 2006.
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took the hybrid format earned final grades that were an average
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format. Taking this finding in combination with the average
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Teaching With Technology
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