| Despite the vast research on administrator and faculty perceptions about blended education delivery models, there has been a paucity of research conducted on graduate students' multimedia technology needs and preferences during group projects and collaborative assignments. A mixed methods survey that included closed-ended and open-ended questions was deployed to a population of 189 students belonging to three EdD cohorts at the University of Pittsburgh. One hundred three students started the survey, but only 98 completed the survey. The survey revealed the following findings through a combination of content analysis and frequency distributions that showed the students' preferred communication type, preferred multimedia communication technology, and preferred multimedia collaboration technology; (1) flexibility and convenience, (2) technology training, (3) technology limitations, (4) video conferencing, (5) video and audio podcasts, (6) Internet access, and (7) communication and feedback. When it came to students-to-students preferred communication and collaboration multimedia technology, 61 students' prefer Google Hangouts for their communication and 60 students' preferred Google Drive as their collaboration tool. Seventy-one students selected both synchronous and asynchronous as the student-to-instructor modes of communication during collaborative projects and assignments. Fifty preferred Google Hangouts as their synchronous communication choice and 31 chose Google Drive as their preferred asynchronous collaborative tool for sharing and editing documents simultaneously. Through content analysis and identifying patterns of the open-ended answers, this study identified the following areas in this blended program that could improve the online collaboration between students and instructors: (1) Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS), (2) project group sizes, and (3) student-instructor communication and feedback. |
