The blended teaching model.

Blended teaching was first introduced in 1969 as a basic constituent of the learning system of distance teaching instruction [5]. The blended learning model integrates contact teaching with instructors and self-controlled preparation using online resources [6]. In doing so, it brings together the traits of online and offline learning, including instructional modalities, teaching methods, and learning tools [7]. It is believed that self-controlled preparation of pre-class learning materials, such as previewing of book chapters, journal papers, and related videos in advance, can save much time for covering important content in class and promote more meaningful interaction between teachers and students within this model [8]. The blended model has been shown to relate to a higher level of learning and promotion of active rather than passive learning [9–11], and it has greater potential for improving students’ learning performance compared with the traditional teaching model [12,13]. Overall, the blended teaching model proves more effective than traditional teaching because it combines the benefits of both online and traditional teaching methods, which reinforces and optimizes the learning process to improve learning quality and academic achievement [12,14].

The EFL blended teaching model.

It is commonly acknowledged that technology plays a key role in language learning [15–18]. Past research has shown that a technology-rich teaching context provides learners with the best language practice environment, which contributes to higher language performance [19,20]. According to Dousti’s research, technology-enhanced instructions provide a wealth of resources to improve students’ familiarity with the vocabulary, syntactic structure, phrases, and flow and connection of ideas in language teaching [21]. Moreover, use of technology in university foreign language classes can simplify culturally responsive teaching, enabling teachers to easily educate culturally and linguistically different language learners [22]. Therefore, within today’s digital context, university English classes have increasingly adopted the blended teaching model for the benefits of technology-supported instruction.

The blended language teaching model entails a language curriculum that integrates face-to-face classroom teaching with appropriate adoption of technology [23]. The application of the blended model is generally believed to leverage and supplement traditional instruction to increase students’ diverse skills of EFL (English as foreign language) [21]. Previous researchers have illustrated the intrinsic benefits of the blended learning method in teaching EFL, such as positive outcomes of using the mixed method on learners’ achievement, positive participation, and feelings of motivation from using the online learning system [24–27].

The EFL blended teaching model in China.

For decades, the most important foreign language in China has been English. University graduates’ proficiency in English serves as an important factor in securing employment and pursuing future career development [28,29]. Thus, EFL courses have always been among the foundational and most essential courses in higher education in China [30]. Nowadays, as the traditional teaching model has been significantly affected by the epidemic, the blended teaching model has become the typical way in which instruction is provided in university English classes in China [31]. Under the traditional English teaching model, due to time and location constraints, Chinese university students with non-English-speaking backgrounds often have difficultly developing global literacy in lingua franca English [32]. After implementing the blended teaching model, English class is no longer a place of passive vocabulary memorizing and sentence practicing, but an immersive and participatory learning environment where university students who speak EFL can easily learn [33]. Moreover, blended teaching can enable learners to participate in more interesting learning opportunities, activate their prior knowledge, and expose them to more multimodal materials and real discourses, such as charts, websites, texts, videos, and pictures, which can accelerate the improvement of English learning [21]. Several researchers have demonstrated that compared to the traditional teaching model, the blended model has positive effects on both learning autonomy and motivation in Chinese English classes [34,35]. However, previous research on the blended foreign language teaching model has mainly discussed the influence of this model on various aspects of English learning (such as grammar, writing, and reading) from the perspective of teaching [5,20,36]. Seldom has research explored the full scope of the students’ English learning process and mechanism under the blended model from the perspective of learners. Therefore, given the importance of English learning and the prevalence of the blended teaching model during the pandemic in China, it is necessary to understand the students’ EFL learning process within the blended teaching model in the context of Chinese universities. The 3P teaching and learning theory serves as a descriptive framework in which students’ learning process can be clearly captured in a particular teaching context. Thus, this theory can provide useful guidance for understanding university students’ English learning process under the blended teaching model in China.

The 3P teaching and learning theory.

The 3P teaching and learning theory, presented by Janette B. Biggs, provides a theoretical framework that describes how instructors’ prior teaching experiences and students’ prior learning experiences connect and link to each other to account for students’ later learning achievement [37,38]. It has been popularly applied in an effort to comprehend the learning process of students from different social and cultural backgrounds [39,40], in different educational phases including secondary education and higher education [41,42], and in different courses, including accounting, management, health and social care, and mathematics [43–46]. In the 3P teaching and learning model, the learning process of students is conceptualized into three correlative phase sequences—namely, presage, process, and product.

The presage phase involves individual learning preparation, which represents students’ prior learning states, as well as the external preparation by teachers, which represents teachers’ prior experiences and personalities. Individual preparation factors in the presage phase are defined as including prior experience and beliefs that students bring into the learning experience and their expectations of the new learning experience [47]. These factors refer to students’ characteristics, which include prior abilities and knowledge, preferred ways of learning, values and expectations, and interests, which are relatively stable in learning [48]. Teachers’ prior experiences and personalities refer to teachers’ professional academic skills, expertise, teaching style, course design ability, and classroom climate [44,49]. Both the internal and external learning preparation variables exist prior to classroom learning [50,51].

The process phase emphasizes how students develop diverse learning methods after class teaching occurs. This phase systematically describes the changes in students’ self-directed learning or passive learning after the interaction between individual and external learning preparation factors [49]. During this period, depending on how confident students feel in their ability to master the learned knowledge and how difficult, important, and enjoyable the tasks are, students will develop different learning motivations, leading them to choose different learning strategies and particular learning methods [45].

Finally, the product phase refers to the learning outcome, including the performance and achievement of students after learning. The outcomes of learning have a vital influence on later learning motivation and involvement [38]. By analyzing the outcome, students can evaluate the appropriateness of their learning strategies and readjust their learning efforts as needed. Teachers can also examine their teaching effectiveness according to students’ learning outcomes and change their teaching methods accordingly [49].

The three phases proposed in the 3P theoretical model are intertwined and form a dynamic learning system as a whole [52]. More specifically, certain aspects of the individual preparation factors, as well as the external teaching preparation factors, will facilitate metacognitive activity related to students’ awareness of their own learning motivation and will control the learning methods used by the students to complete a certain learning task [37]. Then, learning methods will further influence students’ learning achievement. That is to say, learning methods play a mediating role between learning preparation and learning achievement. Meanwhile, variables relating to learning preparation may also have a direct effect on learning achievement. The 3P theory provides us with a cycle of events from the presage phase to process phase and product phase, which helps us to understand the entire scope of university students’ learning process.

The choice of Biggs’ 3P theory as the framework for this research not only because it is helpful to explore the learning process from the perspective of students, but also because it is consistent with the blended teaching model in several respects. First, the 3P theoretical model adopts a constructivist perspective because it regards learners as self-determining subjects who actively choose information from the perceived environment, and who construct new knowledge based on what they already know [53]. This aligns with the nature of the blended teaching model, which emphasizes how learners can build their own understanding and knowledge through action and reflection in interactive classes [54]. Second, the roles of students and teachers are the same in both Biggs’ 3P theory and the blended teaching model. Both highlight the importance of learners’ personal learning quality and learning style, including their autonomy, motivation, and self-efficacy [5,14]. Importantly, their learning depends on the student characteristics described above in the discussion of the 3P model. The blended teaching model effectively activates the previously mentioned elements of students’ characteristics [55]. Teachers should assume not only a leading role in transmitting knowledge, but also in guiding, enlightening, and monitoring the teaching process, according to both Biggs’ 3P theory and the blended teaching model [23,37]. In short, they both attach importance to the organic combination of the teacher’s leading position and the student’s central role. Third, they both advocate for the importance of teaching context. In the 3P model, a diversified and positive teaching context encompasses all factors under the teacher’s control, all of which have significant motivational consequences in the next two stages [37], while the adoption of blended teaching in university EFL classes can provide students with an immersive, supportive, constructive, and highly participatory teaching context [33,37]. Therefore, it is reasonable to understand the key psychological process of university students’ EFL learning based on the framework of the 3P theory. The current study explores the mechanism and process of learning employed by students in EFL classes using the 3P model within the Chinese university context, examining the relationship among learning preparation, learning methods, and learning achievement. This is a worthwhile topic for investigation because of the current educational needs created by the global epidemic.

The path from learning preparation to learning achievement.

According to the 3P teaching and learning theoretical model, learning preparation in the presage phase consists of individual learning preparation and external teaching preparation. The former refers to the students’ learning characteristics, including their prior knowledge of the subject they are learning about, their interest in it, their learning ability, and other factors [37,51]. Among these qualities, academic self-concept serves as a very important factor for individuals, reflecting students’ prior experiences, personalities, abilities, beliefs, and other learning characteristics in the presage phase because it involves their degree of accumulation of knowledge and self-evaluation regarding a specific academic domain [56]. Academic self-concept involves the student’s self-awareness of learning ability in a learning context as well as a relatively stable view developed by the student of his or her learning ability [57]. Learning achievement, as a representative learning outcome in the product phase, reflects the quality of the university, and test scores act as the direct reflection of learning achievement. Results from empirical research on the connection between academic self-concept and learning achievement are mixed. Some researchers have found that a strong self-concept promotes high academic achievement [58,59]. For example, Marsh’s longitudinal study showed that prior academic self-concept serves as a significant factor influencing students’ subsequent standardized test scores [60]. Others have argued that a reciprocal and mutually reinforcing relationship exists between academic achievement and self-concept, with both acting as cause and effect [61,62]. Based on the previous meta-analysis studies, a student’s academic self-concept is positively and significantly associated with the learning achievement of the student in different learning phases, with the correlation coefficient stabilizing between 0.2 and 0.27 [63]. However, Huat held that once background factors or prior attainment variables are controlled, connections between academic self-concept and achievement outcomes tend to disappear [64]. It is believed that academic self-concept related to language may influence English learning in various ways; self-concept related to pronunciation, for instance, can reduce students’ anxiety in Chinese EFL classes and increase their confidence in learning English [65], so it seems that academic self-concept affects subsequent learning outcomes obviously and positively within the Chinese EFL context. Therefore, academic self-concept is very likely to directly predict learning achievement in Chinese university students’ EFL learning.

External teaching preparation in the presage phase mainly involves all factors relating to the teaching situation—for example, teachers’ teaching content, methods of teaching and assessment, teachers’ professional skills, and classroom and school climate or spiritual disposition [38]. Since course experience can describe students’ perceptions of teaching quality, evaluation, workload, and learning community, students’ view of external teaching preparation in the presage phase can be concentrated on this variable [66–68]. Previous literature has shown that course experience of college students is positively and significantly associated with their academic outcomes [69–71]. According to the findings of Guo Jianpeng’s study, when a university was equipped with a high level of teaching quality, clear teaching goals, a relatively high degree of learning freedom, a moderate amount of coursework, and reasonable assessment methods, the students realized better academic achievement [72]. The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) is one of the most widely used scales for evaluating the learning experience, and it also serves as a performance indicator of the teaching effect of the whole curriculum in higher education [67,73]. The theoretical basis of the CEQ is that students’ perceptions of curriculum, teaching, and assessment standards act as key determinants of the quality of their learning methods and outcomes [74]. In many previous studies, university students’ examination results significantly and positively correlated with the dimensions “good teaching,” “appropriate workload,” and “appropriate assessment” in CEQ [67,68,71]. In general, in the environment of the blended teaching model, students’ English course experience was relatively good and they felt a higher sense of immersion and internal motivation [75,76]. For instance, blended teaching maximized the opportunity for learners to practice English listening using online resources freely at their convenience [55]. Moreover, the blended teaching model involved more extensive learning methods and channels than traditional learning, which proved more conducive to the development of students’ English skills and could arouse and activate positive emotions in learning preparation [77]. From this vantage point, it seems that course experience not only predicts later learning outcomes but also closely relates to the previously mentioned individual qualities of students within the EFL blended teaching context. Therefore, university students’ course experience is very likely to directly predict learning achievement within the EFL blended teaching context.

The path from learning methods to learning achievement. Based on the 3P teaching and learning theoretical model, students will choose different learning methods to study within the process stage after learning preparation occurs. Learning engagement is a positive learning method that centers on the degree of engagement and endeavor devoted by students to learning [78]. It includes three dimensions: vigor, dedication, and absorption. Vigor refers to the degree to which a person is willing to work hard and persevere in the face of difficulties, dedication refers to a person’s strong sense of responsibility and achievement in learning, and absorption refers to the ability of individuals to concentrate on learning for a long time and have a positive psychological experience in the learning process [79]. In addition, learning engagement includes three component parts—namely, behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement. The three components of engagement might have different relationships with academic achievement, researchers have found [80]. Although emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement have all been favorably correlated with academic achievement [81,82], behavioral engagement may have a stronger positive correlation with academic achievement than emotional and cognitive engagement [83]. As elucidated by the learning engagement theory, learning engagement serves as a carrier and intermediary for cognitive and emotional engagement [84]. Numerous studies have shown that for college students, learning engagement is closely linked to academic achievement, ability development, and learning satisfaction [85–87]. In studies of higher education, learning engagement often acts as a strong predictor for academic development [88]. The concept of learning engagement has grown extremely popular in higher education and is usually deemed to be on par with academic success and effective learning [89], perhaps because deeper engagement in learning can lead students to beneficial educational practices that further lead to well-rounded learning [90,91]. Considering the significance of learning engagement in any teaching environment, including face-to-face, online, and blended curriculum [92], and the well-documented positive relationship between learning engagement and learning achievement in various courses and teaching formats [93], university students’ learning engagement within the process phase is very likely to positively predict learning achievement in the product phase within the Chinese EFL blended teaching context.

Procrastination involves an irrational tendency to delay the commencement or completion of a planned behavior, or to delay making a decision [94]. It can happen in school, work, daily activities, family life, and other social interactions. Although it occurs in a variety of fields, procrastination occurs most often in activities related to learning [95]. Academic procrastination is a negative learning method applied by students in the process phase, entailing the non-rational behavior of deferring the start of the learning task or extending the deadline of the task [96]. Procrastination is the opposite of learning engagement; the two represent both extremities of the learning state in the process phase. Academic procrastination usually manifests after class, such as when completing homework, previewing the next lesson, and studying for a test [97]. Studies have shown that academic procrastination is a common and widely experienced problematic behavior among university students—95% of university students may deliberately delay their learning, and 70% may often engage in the behavior of delaying a learning task [98]. Researchers tend to regard academic procrastination as a result of self-regulation failure and consider that individuals using this negative learning approach will have negative psychological experiences such as fatigue, guilt, depression, and anxiety, which can severely affect university students’ physical and mental state [99–101]. Moreover, considerable empirical research has pointed out that using this negative learning method may lead to poor academic performance and learning achievement [102–104]. This occurs because procrastinators are so busy dealing with anxiety that they put off the task at hand until they do not have enough time to complete it, or because procrastinators do not invest the time and effort needed for performing well due to underestimating how long a particular task will take [105]. Therefore, university students’ academic procrastination during the process phase is very likely to negatively predict learning achievement in the product phase.

The path from learning preparation to learning methods, and then to learning achievements.

On the path from learning preparation to learning methods, the relationship between individual preparation and different types of learning methods has been confirmed to a certain extent in some previous studies. In terms of the relationship between individual preparation and the negative learning method of procrastination, it is believed that the more positive the individual learning preparation is, the less procrastination students will engage in during the learning process [106]. Focusing on the relationship between academic self-concept and academic procrastination, Luo Yun et al. discussed the mechanism by which learning self-concept influences academic procrastination. In his view, a lower level of learning self-concept in students leads to a distant and indifferent attitude toward learning, more fatigue and discomfort, and a lower sense of achievement, making students more prone to procrastinate [107]. Meanwhile, in terms of the relationship between individual preparation and positive learning methods such as learning engagement, researchers have shown that students are more likely to display more learning engagement if they have a higher academic self-concept [108,109].

In addition, numerous studies have explored the relationship between external types of teaching preparation such as course experience and different types of learning methods. On one hand, Yin et al. demonstrated the connection between course experience and learning engagement. They pointed out that students’ understanding of clear teaching goals, the development of teachers’ generic skills, and an appropriate course load were positively and significantly correlated with learning engagement [42]. Coates took a more inclusive and holistic view of the students’ experience, arguing that learning engagement develops from the dynamic association between individual learning preparation and external teaching preparation [90]. On the other hand, many researchers have found that a negative relationship exists between the deep cognitive experience of a specific course and procrastination among university students [110,111].

However, previous research has mainly concentrated on the exploration of the relationship between the learning preparation variables and the learning method variables, while little research has included the learning achievement variables in the discussion and explored the relationship among the three [112–115]. Recently, more researchers have been realizing that learning methods, as process variables, would be affected by variables relating to learning preparation, which would have a sustained influence on learning achievement variables [116–118]. For example, Barattucci et al. demonstrated the mediating function of learning methods between the perceptions of the academic environment (one of the representative variables of learning preparation) and learning achievement by using the 3P teaching and learning model [119]. University students’ academic self-concept and course experience, which both represent the learning preparation variables, are therefore very likely to indirectly predict learning achievement through different learning methods, according to their findings. In addition, the 3P model has not been used to fully grasp the learning process of university students, because previous literature studying the learning mechanism with the 3P model only incorporated the influence of positive learning methods on learning achievement while failing to discuss the influencing mechanism of negative learning methods on the relationship between learning preparation and learning achievement [72,114,118]. According to the above analysis of the relationship between negative learning methods and learning preparation variables, university students’ academic self-concept and course experience are believed to negatively predict their adoption of negative learning methods—namely, academic procrastination—which in turn negatively affects their final academic achievement. In sum, we predict that within the field of EFL, university students’ academic self-concept and course experience may influence their academic achievement not only through learning engagement that represents the use of a positive learning method, but also through academic procrastination that represents negative learning methods within the blended teaching context.

Participants.

The participants were recruited from two universities located in Xuzhou City, a second-tier city in the Chinese setting. All the samples enrolled in a compulsory course named “college English”. Questionnaires were distributed to 979 first-year non-English major students, and 37 invalid questionnaires were eliminated because of their incompleteness. Finally, 942 valid questionnaires were collected, giving a response rate of 96.2%. Among the respondents, there were 447 male and 495 female students with a mean age of 18.66±.71 years old, which showed a relatively balanced gender proportion.

Ethics statement.

The present study involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the selected University. Before conducting the survey, participants and the English course teachers provided their written informed consent to take part in this research. Only the data of participants who agreed to participate in the questionnaire survey would be used. University students’ participants in this questionnaire was entirely voluntary and they could stop and withdraw from this survey at any time.

Context and procedure.

The English course adopted the blended teaching model, with a frequency of 3 sessions per week. The final examination was administered at the end of the first semester, which was the only means to grade the students. Students were recruited using “Wenjuanxing”, an online crowdsourcing platform to complete the questionnaire two weeks after the final examination. They were told that they could opt-out of the questionnaire if they did not wish to attend. Even if participants refuseed to participate in the questionnaire, it would not affect them in the future. Responses were confidential and anonymous. The questionnaire took the participants about 25 minutes.

EFL Academic Self-Concept (EFL-ASC).

An adapted version of the English Self Concept-Chinese Students (ESC-CS), consisting of 26 items measuring the five factors of general EFL Academic Self-Concept (6 items), listening (5 items), writing (5 items), speaking (5 items), and reading (5 items), was used according to the characteristics of Chinese students” English learning [120]. The scale was answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”) and a total of 14 questions were designed on the EFL-ASC for reverse scoring. The higher the scale’s score, the stronger the academic self-concept of students in EFL learning. Besides, the confirmatory factor analysis showed the scale had a good model fit: χ²/df = 2.336, CFI = .998, GFI = .995, RMSEA = .038, SRMR = .0081, and the Cronbach’s α coefficient for the EFL-ASC was 0.958.

EFL Course Experience Questionnaire (EFL-CEQ).

An adapted version of the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)[121], measuring the four factors of good teaching, generic skills, clear goals and standard, and overall satisfaction item, was used. A total of 2 questions were designed on the EFL-CEQ for reverse scoring. Based on the CEQ, the content relating to the EFL course was added to the EFL-CEQ. For example, the original question “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course” was rephrased as “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the English course”. The scale was answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). The higher the questionnaire’s score, the better the experience of students in EFL learning. In addition, the model fit of EFL-CEQ was good as χ²/df = 4.18, CFI = .997, GFI = .996, RMSEA = .058 SRMR = .0091, and the Cronbach’s α coefficient for the scale was .960.

EFL Study Engagement Scale (EFL-SESS).

An adapted version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale-student (UWES-S), consisting of 14 items measuring the three factors of vigor (5 items), dedication (5 items), and absorption (4 items), was used to test students’ learning engagement [122]. The Cronbach”s α coefficient for EFL-SESS was 0.969. The scale was answered on a 7-point Likert-type scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). On the basis of the UWES-S, each item of EFL-SESS was slighted revised to be contextualized. For example, the question “I can persist in studying for a long time” was revised to “I can persist in studying English for a long time”. The higher the scale”s score, the more engagement students have invested in English learning. In addition, the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the number of observed variables was equal to the number of parameters for this scale, so that the model had zero degrees of freedom. This kind of model is called saturated model and its model fit is perfect.

EFL Academic Procrastination Scale (EFL-APS).

The EFL academic procrastination of students was measured by means of an adapted version of the Short General Procrastination Scale (SGPS) [123]. It included 3 items that were answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). The Cronbach’s α coefficient for EFL-APS was .777. On the basis of the SGPS, each item of EFL-APS was slighted revised to be contextualized. For example, the question “For the homework that must be done, I will also postpone it for a few days.” was revised to “For the English homework that must be done, I will also postpone it for a few days.” The higher the EFL-APS’s score, the higher procrastination students have performed in EFL studies. In addition, the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the number of observed variables was equal to the number of parameters for this scale, so that the model had zero degrees of freedom. This kind of model is called saturated model and its model fit is perfect.

EFL learning scores.

In this study, learning achievement refers to EFL course examination scores. The scores were expressed by the mean score of the 2020–2021 English examination and acquired by self-administrated questionnaires. The English examination lasted for a two-hour examination, and students had to complete four types of English questions. The examination was assessed by EFL course teachers, such that Writing contributed 20%, Words and Phrases 20%, Reading 40% and Translation 20% of the total grade. The students were only given a total grade score (this is also the only available grade score for the present research), ranging from 0 to 100. The full score of English examination is 100 points and the mean score was 74.149, with a standard deviation of 13.961. Unlike the other four measures posited as latent variables, learning achievement was treated as an observed variable in SEM analysis.