Presenting the Causal Model of the Constituent Components of Combined Learning and Its Effect on the Academic Performance of Secondary Level

Today, education experts believe that technology should not be considered a practical tool in education. They believe that technology as a powerful solution creates differentiation and can be effective. The technology effectively empowers teaching and learning and enables education professionals to create outstanding scientific experiences for students, especially at the secondary level, and to increase the connection between the real world and the classroom through Various resources and tools to strengthen education. Many secondary school students can become learner-oriented through the use of technology and improve their performance. By adding the world of science in the classroom and making the classroom atmosphere exciting, we can increase the power of imagination of the students and even those who do not enjoy the structure and scientific topics, can be fascinated and interested. The use of any type of technology in the classroom will help in differentiated teaching, beyond all these issues, the use of technology in the classroom environment will be very attractive for the secondary level, and it will even motivate students to do better homework, think, and read more accurately. Therefore, the use of technology along with the benefits of traditional education will improve teaching. There is a huge gap between what students learn in schools, compared to how the real world works with technology, education, and communication programs. As a result, the question is raised, what strategies should educators, especially at the secondary level, adopt to use technology in the classroom in a meaningful way? In other words, the correct use of the strengths of both traditional and electronic approaches in blended learning is of particular importance. In many schools, teachers do not take advantage of these resources, students still present their lesson projects on the board or paper sheets, most of the time when they are in class, they listen to their teacher and have no contribution to the teaching and learning method. The classroom environment is dominated by teacher-centeredness. Normally, most of the students feel a kind of boredom and lethargy when they enter the school and attend the classroom, and what they experience in real life outside of the school physically, emotionally, and academically, is often far from It is the school environment. It is essential that educational professionals should move learners towards learner-centeredness and strengthen the connection between the activities of learners in school and outside of school, if this connection is weak or never established students will not be able to enter the future. and achieving the goals of the business world, they have problems. If we don't change our educational system and don't push the students to be learner-centered and don't familiarize them with technological developments and skills and their interests, students won't get acquainted with specialized and academic skills for educational growth and excellence and will go backward. will go This issue is very important especially at the secondary level in the teaching of experimental sciences and mathematics, because these two scientific branches (mathematical and experimental) are the main field of many jobs in today's world. Blended learning combines a systemic approach and a contingency approach to learning. This means that while paying attention to the relationship between all components as a whole, special attention is paid to the conditions of using these tools to achieve the best result. The advantage of blended learning is a means of reducing costs that come from combining e-learning with older methods of education. Conducting the present research can bring comprehensive and interesting results by examining the causal factors affecting blended learning. Therefore, the research question is, what is the causal model of the components of combined learning and its effect on the academic performance of the secondary level?

This research is practical in terms of purpose and a mixed research method has been used. The statistical population of the research included experts in the field of curriculum planning studies, educational technology, philosophy of education, distance education, and blended learning. In this research, the target sample was selected using the purposeful sampling method. The sample size included 15 professors of the relevant field at Payam Noor University, Kerman, who were selected in the form of snowball sampling. Data analysis was done using the Delphi method.

The results showed that conceptual elements (organizational dimension, educational philosophy, needs assessment, and goals), analytical elements (audience analysis, content analysis and presentation, analysis of the environment and media used), executive elements (design, producers, learning and teaching and interaction and communication) and supporting elements (supporting factors, management system, evaluation, educational justice, organization and motivation, analysis of learner characteristics, management of education and learning and construction environment and Constructivist) are among the factors that make up blended learning and its effect on academic performance.

Based on the obtained results, blended learning can bring all-round changes in the development of knowledge, skill, and attitude of the learner, which requires inclusive activeness in the matter of learning, and improves the academic performance of the learners. In the implementation of this research, like any research, the researcher faced limitations, some of which are mentioned below; Lack of full recognition of education through virtual environments as well as blended learning in Iran; The busy work of some experts, which made the work of gathering information, especially in the Delphi method, difficult and delayed; Existence of security and filtering issues and problems; The high risk of choosing the subject according to the decisions of the higher education authorities of the country regarding the resistance of universities and schools in not using education in a combined manner.