Blended learning refers to learning offerings that combine in-person learning and content delivered online in a didactically planned way. The widely cited definition from the Handbook of Blended Learning by Bonk and Graham from 2006 refers to systems that combine face-to-face teaching with computer-mediated teaching. In its taxonomy from 2012, the Christensen Institute (then the Innosight Institute) adds a second characteristic: learners control time, place, learning path, or pace at least partly themselves. In its Data Report 2022, the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training sums it up as a "didactically targeted combination of in-person and online phases".
The term does not come from schools but from workplace professional development. According to Norm Friesen's history of the term from 2012, one of the earliest documented uses is a press release by the provider EPIC Learning from March 1999. In German, the terms integriertes Lernen (integrated learning) and hybrides Lernen (hybrid learning) also circulate alongside it.
The terms are used inconsistently. On e-teaching.org, the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien treats hybrid learning as a synonym for blended learning and assigns to it all scenarios that take place neither exclusively on site nor exclusively online. The Hochschulforum Digitalisierung calls formats in which part of the group sits in the room and part joins in at the same time "hybrid synchronous teaching". The glossary of the Austrian adult education portal erwachsenenbildung.at reserves "hybrid" for precisely this synchronous format and recommends the term blended learning for alternating over time between in-person and online phases.
No standard defines where blended learning ends and purely online learning begins. A convention widespread in research, cited by the psychology working group of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung, puts the online share in blended learning at between 30 and 79 percent. Above that, an offering counts as online teaching; below it, as media-enriched face-to-face teaching. Pure e-learning without an in-person component is therefore not blended learning.
The most frequently cited classification comes from the taxonomy by Heather Staker and Michael Horn for the Christensen Institute. It was developed for US schools, but its four basic models can be transferred to professional development:
In workplace practice, this often means that fundamentals and knowledge transfer are provided as a self-study module on a learning platform, while in-person sessions are reserved for what really requires attendance, such as practical exercises or the exchange of experience.
The broadest data basis is provided by a meta-analysis by the US Department of Education from 2010 with 50 effects from 45 studies. Compared with purely face-to-face teaching, blended learning performed better by an average of 0.35 standard deviations, whereas purely online learning did so by only 0.05 standard deviations, a difference without statistical significance. The authors expressly warn against attributing the advantage to the medium: the blended conditions often offered more learning time, more material, and more collaboration. Most of the groups studied were adults in higher education, vocational education and training, and workplace training.
A meta-analysis by Bernard and colleagues from 2014 confirms a small to medium effect of 0.33 compared with traditional teaching in higher education. The psychology working group of the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung speaks of rather small effects overall. A meta-analysis by Müller and Mildenberger from 2021 with 21 studies found, on average, no difference from face-to-face teaching for blended formats that replace 30 to 79 percent of classroom time. By contrast, we were unable to trace frequently cited percentages on "better knowledge retention" back to any primary study. The advantage of blended learning therefore lies less in the medium than in the possibility of distributing self-study phases and in-person time according to the learning objective, similar to microlearning, whose effectiveness also depends on the design.
Digital components are now the norm in German professional development. According to the Adult Education Survey 2022 by the Federal Ministry of Education, participation in professional development among 18- to 64-year-olds was 58 percent; 72 percent of all educational activities, formal and non-formal alike, were carried out with digital media, up from 60 percent in 2020, and among professional development activities alone the figure was 70 percent. The increase came mainly from offerings that took place at least partly online. For 2022, the IW professional development survey counts digital learning media at 76.2 percent of all companies; one in two companies active in professional development uses in-house learning platforms, knowledge libraries, wikis, or forums. As early as between 2015 and 2020, according to the Federal Statistical Office, the share of companies with ten or more employees using self-directed learning, for example via e-learning, rose from 26 to 42 percent.
There is no representative figure for Germany on how many businesses explicitly organize their professional development as blended learning. The expert survey by the mmb Institut in the Trendmonitor 2025/2026 rates blended learning, with 81 percent agreement, as a central form of learning in the coming years, but it is not representative. In the 2024 professional development study by Bitkom Akademie, 35 percent of the working people surveyed stated that they had already used blended learning and wanted to use it again; a further 34 percent would like to try it.
For mandatory training, the split is often obvious: knowledge transfer runs as an online course that documents participation and completion on a training platform, while practical exercises or follow-up questions take place in person. Standards such as SCORM ensure that the online phase runs in any learning management system and reports its results back, and when onboarding new employees, self-study modules and on-site induction can be interlinked following the same pattern.
The two terms are often used synonymously, for example on e-teaching.org. The glossary of the adult education portal erwachsenenbildung.at, by contrast, draws a distinction: blended learning means alternating over time between in-person and online phases, hybrid learning means simultaneous participation on site and by joining remotely, which the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung calls "hybrid synchronous teaching". If you want to be precise, say whether the phases run one after the other or in parallel.
Meta-analyses find small or no advantages. The 2010 evaluation by the US Department of Education found an average effect of 0.35 standard deviations, but the blended groups often had more learning time and material. In 2021, Müller and Mildenberger found, on average, no difference from face-to-face teaching when 30 to 79 percent of classroom time was replaced. What matters is the instructional design, not the medium.
There is no binding requirement. In research, the convention by Allen, Seaman, and Garrett from 2007 is widespread; it places blended learning at an online share of 30 to 79 percent. The Christensen Institute only requires that learners learn at least partly online and have a say in time, place, path, or pace. In practice, the split depends on the learning objective: knowledge online, practice and exchange in person.
All sources accessed on 3 Sep 2026 unless otherwise stated in the entry. Study and statistical values carry their reference year in the entry.
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