This study aimed to empirically analyze the effects of blended learning on the enhancement of elementary school students’ core competencies required in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital transformation, focusing on knowledge-inf...
This study aimed to empirically analyze the effects of blended learning on the enhancement of elementary school students’ core competencies required in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digital transformation, focusing on knowledge-information processing competence and self-management competence.
For this purpose, a total of 99 sixth-grade students (53 in the experimental group and 46 in the comparison group) from elementary schools in Busan were selected as participants. The experimental group participated in a seven-week station rotation model of blended learning, while the comparison group received
traditional offline instruction. Pre- and post-tests were conducted, and the data were analyzed using independent samples t-tests and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with SPSS 23.0. The research findings are as follows. The experimental group that participated in blended learning showed statistically significant improvement compared to the comparison group in both knowledge information processing competence
(F=18.585, p<.001, η²=.162) and self-management competence (F=16.745, p<.001, η ²=.149). In the sub-domain analysis, significant differences were found in “information searching and collecting” and “information organizing and presenting” for knowledge information processing competence, and in “career independence” and “career behavior” for self-management competence. These results demonstrate that blended learning is an effective instructional strategy for comprehensively enhancing elementary students’ information utilization ability and self-directed learning competence, suggesting a practical direction for competency-based instructional design in future elementary education.