Introduction: Blended learning, i.e., a mix of online and in-class education, can be deployed for enhancing the educational quality and resilience in higher education (HE). It may also contribute to HE’s sustainability objectives by lowering the carbon emissions of students commuting to campus. In this study, pedagogical design principles for sustainable blended learning and teaching are developed and evaluated taking into account these opportunities. Methods: A prototype for a sustainable blended study program at a University of Applied Sciences was developed and evaluated using a form of Educational Design Research. Results: The design stage, carried out by a team of eight lecturers, resulted in a design based on six pedagogical design principles. This design also included an effort to reduce student travel by limiting on-campus education to two days a week. The results show the effects of students’ increased online learning skills and diminished travel movements on their satisfaction with the blended learning design, and their travel behaviour, which can lead towards an attitude change regarding commute and online learning. The lecturers’ observations and experiences, depending on their personal preferences, contradicted (self-regulation skills) as well as confirmed (online learning experiences) the students’ evaluations. Discussion: The developed design principles are important to support a new balance between virtual and physical spaces, learning activities, moments in time and sustainability.@en

Purpose: Daily commuting trips of higher education (HE) students account for a large proportion of the carbon footprint of a HE institution. Considerations of students underlying their choice of travel mode and their decision to make the trip to campus or to study online are explored as a necessary first step for finding an optimal balance between online and on-campus learning from both a sustainability and an educational perspective. Design/methodology/approach: Focus group conversations were held with student groups from different study programmes of a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands. Findings: Dutch students’ travel mode choices seem to depend on measures regulating travel demand such as a free public transport card and high parking costs. The findings indicate that students make reasoned choices about making a trip to campus. These choices depend on considerations about their schedule, type, lecturer and content of a course, social norms and their own perceived behavioural control. Alternative online options can provide students with more flexibility to make choices adapted to their needs. Social implications: While these findings are useful for sustainable and educational reasons, they also seem helpful in times of COVID-19 which calls for a re-design of curricula to allow for blended forms of online and on-campus learning. Originality/value: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first studies looking at students’ considerations when deciding whether to travel to campus to learn or stay at home learning online.

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