Enhancing Student Engagement through Self-Care Reminders in Online Courses: A Quasi-experimental Study

Through a quasi-experimental research design, we show that incorporating self-care reminders in an online sociology course correlates with greater student engagement. Online learning has received enhanced attention since it became the primary learning modality during COVID-19 shutdowns. Despite inconclusive evidence about the efficacy of online learning, students report feelings of isolation and disconnection they attribute to reduced learning in online courses. To enhance learning, online teachers are encouraged to cultivate emotional connections with students, although some report that performing such emotional labor is detrimental to their own mental health. Through a quasi-experimental research design conducted in six online asynchronous courses over three semesters between 2020 and 2022, this study shows incorporating self-care reminders in an online sociology class correlates with higher student engagement that is not emotionally draining for teachers. We suggest incorporating self-care reminders in online sociology courses to improve student engagement without demanding excessive emotional labor from sociology teachers.