Analyzing the impact of basic psychological needs on student academic performance: a comparison of post-pandemic interactive synchronous hyflex and pre-pandemic traditional face-to-face instruction

During COVID, HyFlex gained popularity and became a "new normal" that educators need to consider as an effective instructional approach. Previous research offers conflicting findings related to the impact of HyFlex instruction on students' basic psychological needs and academic performance. Our investigation provides insight into a specific variation of HyFlex we call "Interactive Synchronous HyFlex" as it is situated in a highly collaborative active learning environment. The investigation aimed to clarify relationships between students' academic performance, basic psychological needs, and demographics of a pre-pandemic face-to-face offering of an undergraduate project-based design course and the same course using an Interactive Synchronous HyFlex approach at the end of the pandemic. Demographic data were collected from university databases; academic performance was measured by end-of-semester grades; and a survey measured basic psychological needs. The findings revealed that students in the HyFlex offering perceived their basic psychological needs as being met as effectively or significantly more so compared to students in the face-to-face offering. Significant predictors of student academic success were different for face-to-face environments compared to predictors that were significant in HyFlex environments. In the HyFlex environment, relatedness to the instructor was a significant predictor of academic success as was class rank and gender. These findings point to the importance of instructor presence as a key factor in student success in the HyFlex model. Overall, the results indicate that the HyFlex environment is a viable educational model for the post-pandemic era.