Strategies to Engage Online Students and Reduce Attrition Rates.

By Lorraine Angelino, F. Williams, D. Natvig. 2007

424 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Attrition continues to be a major issue in higher education. Attrition rates for classes taught through distance education are 10 – 20% higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting. Educators should engage students early and often, using different learning strategies customized to the class content and the students’ pre-existing knowledge. The goal for the professor is to develop relationships with the students such that they feel comfortable in the environment. The professor should facilitate learner-learner integration and collaboration so that they will learn from one another and expand their knowledge base together. Through an integrative literature review, this article presents key concepts in online learning and a review of different methods of engaging students with the goals of enhancing the learning process and reducing attrition rates.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/648998f94b77e88596399afc7221dbfbecba3803

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In Computer Science Applications

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Development and Validation of the Online Student Connectedness Survey (OSCS) (2012, background): “Angelino et al. (2007) point out the importance of the formation of “relationships with cohorts” (p. 8). Furthermore, Shin (2003) supports the notion that interaction between peers is important to online students and suggests that “the psychological presence of peer students can also bring a positiv”
Building Rapport to Improve Retention and Success in Online Classes (2016, background): “In a 2013 study, Leeds et al. implemented all the best practices outlined by Angelino, Williams, and Natvig (2007).”
Othering in online learning: an examination of social presence, identity, and sense of community (2017, background): “to disconnect from the course content, their peers, and their instructor, and possibly to drop out (Angelino et al., 2007; Phirangee, 2016).”
Student perceptions of support services and the influence of targeted interventions on retention in distance education (2010, background): “Terry (2001, cited in Angelino, Williams, & Natvig, 2007 ), for example, found that more technical classes such as business statistics and finance courses had higher attrition in their distance versions, whereas other business courses had comparable attrition rates.”
Four key challenges to the design of blended learning: A systematic literature review (2017, background): “This makes sense, since feelings of learner isolation and reduced motivation often arise during the online component (McDonald, 2014; Osguthorpe & Graham, 2003), and motivating instructional activities might stimulate learners to persist in the course (Angelino et al., 2007).”