Research Questions - Flexible Learning Environments: Minoritized College Students’ Experiences in HyFlex

Research Questions
This study aimed to address the overarching question: What are the challenges and
benefits of HyFlex learning for minoritized college students?
Subquestions
This study aimed to address the following subquestions:
•
How does minoritization by race, gender, language, or disability status affect the
experiences of students in HyFlex courses?
•
What, if any, issues of equity do minoritized students report from their HyFlex
experience?
•
What are the reasons minoritized students cite for enrolling in HyFlex courses?
•
When given a choice, how do minoritized students prefer to participate in HyFlex
learning, and why?
Research Design Overview
Because my intention was to learn about the lived experiences of individuals who have
experienced a phenomenon, I preferred to focus on personal accounts rather than quantities. I am
interested in gaining an understanding of how participants interpret their experiences and the
meaning they make from those experiences. I chose a phenomenological research design because
it promises to best capture the lived experiences of individuals who have taken at least one
college-level HyFlex course in the United States. In phenomenological research, participants get
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to “relive in their minds the experiences they have had” (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2008, p. 429) about
an experience. A researcher often takes a phenomenological approach to interviewing when they
seek a deep understanding of how another person experiences a phenomenon (Saldaña, 2011;
Seidman, 2013). In phenomenological studies, participants can construct their subjective
interpretations of their own experiences and their own meanings to those lived experiences
(Creswell, 2007; Ritchie et al., 2014; Seidman, 2013). In phenomenological studies, the
researcher gains “a deep understanding of a phenomenon” (Creswell, 2007, p. 62) from those
who have experienced it. Because I wanted to gain a deep understanding of the experiences of
the participants as students in HyFlex learning environments and how they interpreted their
experiences in this type of learning environment, I determined phenomenology was the best
suited study design for this investigation.
The basic purpose of phenomenology is to reduce an individual’s “grasp of the very
nature of the thing” (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p. 75). The nature of the thing is the essence
researchers seek to study regarding human nature and common experiences lived by people
(Creswell & Poth, 2018). The phenomenological approach seemed to be a logical choice to learn
about the different phenomena that affect the experiences of minoritized students in HyFlex
courses. One of my aims for this research was to gain an understanding of the ways the HyFlex
model of teaching and learning can help practitioners increase student equity in postsecondary
undergraduate courses. My plan was to arrive at those understandings through examining the
experiences of minoritized students who had participated in HyFlex courses or programs at
colleges and universities in the United States to inform higher education practitioners about
students’ experiences and expectations in HyFlex learning environments.
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