Tension between digital distance and bodily presence in hybrid teaching: evidence from two natural experiments during the COVID-19 pandemic in a French Business School

Scholars in organization theory and learning have extensively studied the tension between digital distance and bodily presence and their impact on personal interactions and learning outcomes. During the COVID-19-related health emergency, the tension between digital distance and bodily presence has evolved from competing alternatives to a more nuanced co-existence. Several organizations resorted to hybrid arrangements, and hybrid teaching represents a notable example. When bodily presence and digital distance co-exist in a hybrid context, who learns more and under which conditions? We exploit two natural experiments that occurred in a French business school during the fall semester of 2020. The school’s administration allocated students randomly to subgroups for fairness reasons. This context offered a natural within-subjects experiment, where every student was allocated to each class either in person or online lecture in a random fashion. Students who followed lectures in person rather than online had up to a 4.9% lower likelihood of responding correctly to the exam question; however, in the group work assignment, teams with one more student following in person tended to have up to a 3.6% increase in their evaluation. Digital distance, therefore, constitutes a barrier to learning outcomes in a hybrid setting when work requires interaction and learning outcomes are evaluated on a group basis.