Engagement at a Distance: Online Instructor Behaviors to Encourage Student Success

In-person education has had its fair share of research and best practices developed, however, understanding the educational needs of students enrolled in online courses, specifically needs that are fulfilled by their instructor, requires further research. Knowing what instructor activities and behaviors support student success can have a confound impact on how instructors teach in the future to improved learning experiences of students. This paper aims at identifying instructor behaviors that impact student success in online courses and that can be supported by data available from online learning platforms. Following the literature, this paper identifies six specific online behaviors of instructors that are expected to increase student satisfaction when completing online courses, which has been related to student overall success. These behaviors include supporting students with their own time management, providing personalized and timely feedback, soliciting feedback from students, being present and actively utilizing the online learning system, encouraging peer to peer interactions, and ensuring students have access to technical support when required. This paper further breaks down these behaviors into specific auditable online activities that can then be further analyzed for their effectiveness in supporting students’ success. Such analysis can be extremely valuable in providing evidence-based research to support specific instructor online behaviors that encourage student success.