A case study on designing online-merge-offline business education: Linking flow experience to learning effectiveness

With the growing emphasis on employability-oriented curricula in higher education, Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) pedagogy has emerged as an important instructional design innovation in business education. This study examines how immersive OMO course design translates into learning effectiveness through students’ internal developmental processes. Drawing on engagement-based learning perspectives, a moderated mediation model is proposed in which flow experience enhances learning effectiveness via self-esteem, with career aspirations shaping the strength of this mechanism. Survey data were collected from undergraduate students enrolled in a career-oriented OMO business course. The results show that flow experience does not directly predict learning effectiveness; instead, its effects are fully mediated by self-esteem. Moreover, the indirect effects are stronger among students with higher career aspirations. These findings suggest that immersive OMO instruction becomes educationally effective when curriculum design supports students’ self-worth and aligns learning activities with future career goals.