Finding what works online: online course features that encourage engagement, completion, and success

Based on research performed at a single California community college, this study concludes that that instructors in online classes can engage students and increase their completion and success rates by being present and visible to their students, responding quickly and robustly to student inquiries and assignments, providing ample opportunity for students to interact and work with their peers, and by presenting an organized class. The study offers suggestions for implementing online innovations to improve student engagement, completion and success. The study population was 561 students enrolled in 99 online classes at a single California community college. The study focuses on ten course features identified in literature as indicative of an engaging online class and provides descriptive statistics on those ten features as they are present in online course offerings at this community college. This study examines the impact of the features on student engagement, course completion and success. Specifically, this study examines the relationships of features in instructor presence, student interaction and course design to self-reported student engagement and institutional aggregated course completion and success rates. Additionally, this study examines the impacts of student characteristics on engagement, completion and success.