Face-to-face education continues to present benefits in terms of student motivation, even though in COVID-19 scenario, online education has been the model of choice. In addition to the traditional face-to-face style, the intensive face-to-face style remains, which allows greater flexibility for the student. The objective of this study was to compare both educational styles and build an organizational model to improve student satisfaction. Two-way general linear model (GLM) with educational styles and satisfaction as fixed factors and discriminant analysis was applied. The selection of the most discriminant variables was made applying the F of Snedecor, Wilks’-Lambda, and the 1-Tolerance. A discriminant model was built. The four variables with the highest discriminant power were problem-solving communication with students’ representatives and shared knowledge and goals with lectures in the intensive style and frequent communication with administrative officers in the traditional style. In addition, it was found that greater face-to-face attendance did not imply greater coordination and that intensive style students show greater satisfaction. The appropriate duration of face-to-face education can contribute to the design of an innovative hybrid system in the future.

The knowledge of local culture is essential to establish competitive strategies in higher education. The objective of this research was to identify the organizational differences among three universities with different international contexts and satisfaction level. An approach was made regarding Relational Coordination (RC) attributes: accurate, frequent and problem-solving communication, shared knowledge, mutual respect and shared goals, by discriminant analysis method. A random sample of 300 students, 100 belonging to each university, was surveyed on the 23 RC variables in 2017–2018. First, the RC variables were evaluated by general linear model (GLM). The three universities—Arcada University of Applied Science (ARCADA) in Finland, University of Cordoba (UCO) in Spain and Agricultural Polytechnic of Manabi “MFL” (ESPAM) in Ecuador—and the two levels of student satisfaction—Low and High—were used as fixed factors. Second, a discriminant model was built with RC variables. A higher level of RC practices concerning to accurate, frequent and problem-solving communication achieved higher levels of satisfaction, regardless of the universities’ socioeconomic context. RC differentiation among three universities showed that shared goals with lecturers and administrative officers and problem-solving communication among classmates were the variables with the highest discriminant power. Two clusters were obtained, where UCO was the most differentiated university. In conclusion, organizational practices made a difference among the three universities. Discriminant analysis can be adapted and extended to different universities to improve quality.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a paradigm shift in educational systems. During the lockdown, higher education became digital. This caused a change in communication within the educational ecosystem. Relational coordination (RC) is a communication and relationship model associated with the improvement of organizational results. Therefore, the objective of this research is to build an organizational model of online learning applied during the pandemic period and compare it with the previous face-to-face learning. A sample of 2774 students from two Ecuadorian universities was selected. A two-stage methodology was applied: First, an organizational model of online learning was built using multivariate methods. The RC model was linked to student satisfaction using generalized linear models (GLM). In the second stage, the organizational differences between the 2018 face-to-face and the 2020 online learning were identified. Finally, the online learning model was validated with external data. The components associated with a higher level of RC were institutional cooperation, institutional problem-solving, and administrative communication. Administrative communication lost importance in the online model. Significant differences between the satisfaction of the two models were not found. Nevertheless, since online learning was not associated with an improvement in satisfaction, the creation of a third educational model that combines the best practices of online and face-to-face learning in a hybrid system could be an alternative that improves the satisfaction of students.