Online-supported teaching and learning is a technological innovation in education that integrates face-to-face teaching in
plenary lectures, with an online component using a learning management system. This extends opportunities to students to
interact with one another via online chats in the process of transacting their learning. There is a need to understand how South
African students experience these technologies, where many students encounter them for the first time at higher education
level. We are yet to understand variations in students’ experiences of online support and how it has influenced their learning.
This article explores students’ experiences of learning using online chats in Business Management Education. The qualitative
component of this mixed-methods research draws on the tenets of phenomenography. Fifteen participants from a Business
Management Education class of 156 students enrolled in a Bachelor of Education programme were sampled using pheno-
menographic approach. Qualitative data sources included personal reflective journals, focus group discussions and individual
interviews, and questionnaires were circulated to the respondents. A quantitative component was subsequently implemented
to validate the qualitative findings. Analysis of the data revealed that participants viewed online chats as learning contexts in
qualitatively different ways.

doi:10.15700/saje.v35n4a1215