Blended Teaching in Introductory Management Courses in Higher Vocational Education: A Mechanism-Oriented Conceptual Framework Linking Digital Literacy Development and Student Engagement

Abstract

Blended teaching is now widely promoted in higher vocational education, yet its value is still often judged by platform use, video completion or general satisfaction rather than by what students learn to do in disciplinary tasks. This paper develops a mechanism-oriented conceptual framework for introductory management courses, a course category commonly referred to as basic management in Chinese higher vocational colleges. The framework explains how blended teaching may become educationally consequential when online preparation, classroom case analysis, digital collaboration, formative feedback and post-class revision are aligned. Drawing on social cognitive theory, the Community of Inquiry perspective, student engagement theory and the DigComp 2.2 framework, the paper conceptualises digital literacy development as a course-level capability pathway and student engagement as a conversion mechanism through which capability is translated into applied management learning effectiveness. The paper also offers a course-level teaching cycle, construct definitions, a measurement blueprint and an empirical validation protocol using time-lagged survey data, learning-management-system traces, rubric evidence and course-performance indicators. Its contribution is to move blended teaching research beyond delivery-mode comparison and toward a more precise explanation of how digital capability and engagement may jointly support management reasoning, case analysis and transfer-oriented learning in vocational settings.