| Although online delivery for post-secondary education has become typical in the last decade, retention levels remain low compared to on-ground delivery. Institutions engaging in online delivery need to better understand what makes online students persist. The institutions must capitalize on these reasons and ensure that faculty are well-trained in these best practices. This quantitative study was designed to investigate what online teaching experts purport to be the best practices and then survey online students who dropped a course to determine the degree to which the online faculty employed the practice, against the degree to which the online leaner valued the practice. Few studies, if any, survey students who drop courses. At best those who are satisfied enough to complete courses are surveyed. To better understand how to meet the customers' needs, it makes sense to survey those who institutions would like to retain---non-completers. This study concludes that institutions of higher education need to have policies and procedures for online teaching that include the twenty best practices identified in this study, in order to increase retention of online learners. |
