Technology-Supported University Teaching Models in China During the Pandemic - National Survey and Future Prospects

Oct 15, 2026

Technology-supported teaching models shaped China’s higher education response during the pandemic, guided by a Ministry of Education guideline and later examined through a national survey of university administrators. The study reports widespread adoption of MOOCs, with a higher development and introduction level in eastern China than in central and western regions. Universities generally prioritized hardware support for blended learning before teacher training and incentives, while hybrid learning was broadly implemented. Tsinghua’s experience illustrates infrastructure upgrades, teacher training, and effective use of tools such as Rain Classroom for global hybrid offerings.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time20 min

AccessFree to download

Highlights

Survey scope and context

Key survey findings

Results: Accelerated growth of MOOCs

Technology-Supported University Teaching Models in China During the Pandemic: National Survey and Future Prospects Xiaoxiao Wang (汪潇潇) and Shuangshuang Guo (郭双双) Tsinghua University ECNU Review of Education 2024, Vol. 7(1) 174–181 © The Author(s) 2022 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/20965311221135088](DOI: 10.1177/20965311221135088)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/20965311221135088)[journals.sagepub.com/home/roe](journals.sagepub.com/home/roe) Highlights • The Ministry of Education Research Center for Online Education conducted a national survey of university administrators of learning and teaching. • The survey results showed that (a) the universities in eastern China had developed and introduced more massive open online courses (MOOCs) than those in the central and western regions; (b) of the various measures for blended learning, the universities tended to focus on supporting hardware development before providing training and incentive measures to teachers; and (c) the universities had widely used hybrid learning approaches. In relation to hybrid learning, Tsinghua University explored infrastructure upgrades, teacher training, and the optimal use of the rain classroom and its clone class, and launched the global hybrid classroom and global open courses. • In the future, it will be necessary to further promote education equity in line with national policies and provide and perfect incentives to improve the quality of blended learning and expand hybrid learning while improving interaction through technology. Keywords Blended learning, hybrid learning, MOOCs Date received: 27 May 2022; revised: 8 July 2022; accepted: 14 August 2022 Corresponding author: Xiaoxiao Wang, Online Education Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. [Email: xxwang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn](Email: xxwang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn) Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as speciﬁed on the SAGE and Open Access page ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)). Introduction In early 2020, the sudden outbreak of the pandemic posed enormous challenges to higher education worldwide. On February 5, 2020, the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (MOE) responded by issuing a guideline on the organization and management of university online teaching amid the pandemic, which set a goal of suspending classes without suspending teaching or learning (MOE, 2020) . At the end of 2021, seeking to understand and learn from Chinese universities’ emergent technology-supported teaching models, the Ministry of Education Research Center for Online Education conducted a national survey of university administrators of learning and teaching. This study was commissioned by the Ministry of Education, and the principles of voluntary participation and anonymity of participants were adhered to during the research process. One hundred and sixty-six questionnaires were returned, of which 150 were valid, for a response rate of 90.4% . Of the universities that participated in the survey, 56 (37.3%) were in eastern China, 38 (25.3%) were in central China, and 56 (37.3%) were in western China. The average university size, measured by the number of undergraduates, was 17,866 (± 12,099), and the average number of courses offered to undergraduates was 2,023 (± 1,656) . The survey focused on the status of technology-supported university teaching models in China, especially on the development of massive open online courses (MOOCs)

FAQs

What prompted the national survey of university teaching models?

After 2021, the Ministry of Education Research Center for Online Education conducted a national survey to understand and learn from Chinese universities’ emerging technology-supported teaching models during the pandemic.

What did the survey find about MOOCs across regions?

More MOOCs were developed and introduced in eastern China than in central and western regions, and the majority of universities had developed their own MOOCs (94%).

How did universities approach blended learning support for teachers?

For blended learning measures, universities tended to focus on supporting hardware development before offering training and incentive measures to teachers, while hybrid learning approaches were widely used.

Oct 15, 2026

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