Assessing the Effectiveness of Using Live Interactions and Feedback to Increase Engagement in Online Learning

TL;DR

This study investigates how integrating live interactions and feedback into online learning improves learner engagement, performance, and persistence, addressing the lack of social and immediate feedback mechanisms inherent in self-paced online courses.

Contribution

It demonstrates that adding live interactions and feedback significantly enhances engagement, performance, and persistence in online learning environments, a novel approach to improving online education outcomes.

Findings

Positive correlation between live interactions and learner performance

Increased course persistence with live feedback mechanisms

Higher completion rates of supplemental materials with live engagement

Abstract

In-person instruction for professional development or other types of workplace training provides a social environment and immediate feedback mechanisms that typically ensure all participants are successful. Online, self-paced instruction lacks these mechanisms and relies on the motivation and persistence of each individual learner, often resulting in low completion rates. In this study, we studied the effect of introducing enabling tools and live feedback into an online learning experience on learner performance in the course, persistence in the course, and election to complete supplemental readings and assignments. The findings from our experiments show positive correlations with strong statistical significance between live interactions and all performance measures studied. Research funded by the National Science Foundation, award number #1843391.