Dropout in Online Education: A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis of Elementary Students’ Extracurricular English Course Engagement in China

While high dropout rates hinder the success of online education, little is known about the patterns of dropout beyond adult education, particularly regarding time-related variables. This study aims to address this gap by analyzing data from 219 online extracurricular English courses, involving approximately 300,000 Chinese elementary students. We employed a multilevel modeling technique and found that the dropout rate increased throughout the semester and peaked at chapter transitions. Furthermore, we also found that the dropout rate varied with grades and semesters. Younger students and those in the second semester were more likely to drop out from online education and exhibited a higher dropout rate during chapter transitions. These findings highlight the temporal dynamics of dropout in elementary online education in China and the variations across grade and semester, providing valuable implications for educators in designing more effective online learning environments. Future studies should further explore the generalizability of these patterns in other educational and cultural contexts.