Scaffolding students: suggestions on how to equip students with the necessary study skills for studying in a blended learning environment

In this paper we consider the implications of moving from a paper‐based delivery of study support materials to electronic delivery. The paper is based on telephone interviews with 60 students who had received a range of study support materials from a series of ‘student toolkits’, which are printed resource booklets for students of the UK Open University. McLoughlin (2002) sees the integration of electronic delivery at the primary, secondary and tertiary education levels as requiring an extension to current concepts of scaffolding. The extension we propose in this paper is the need to establish study skills plus the ways and means to seek support in a resource‐based environment. However, there is a delicate balance between increased provision and overloaded provision in resource‐based learning.