Online Learning Fatigue, Academic Engagement, and Dropout Intention Among University Students Under NEP 2020

The rapid institutionalisation of online and hybrid learning modalities in Indian universities following the COVID-19 pandemic, reinforced by the National Education Policy 2020’s directive to expand digital and online education to at least 50 percent of all higher education enrolments by 2035, has generated a largely unexamined crisis of learner fatigue that threatens to undermine the participation and completion gains that digital education promises. This study investigates the antecedents and consequences of Online Learning Fatigue among undergraduate and postgraduate students across eight Indian universities, proposing a structural model in which screen-time overload, lack of social presence, platform usability deficits, and assessment anxiety jointly drive fatigue, which in turn suppresses academic engagement and elevates dropout intention. Data collected from students over an eighteen-week semester using repeated cross-sectional measurement are analysed through Structural Equation Modelling, and the moderating role of institution type is examined. The findings reveal that fatigue peaks sharply during examination approach periods and that social presence deficit is a more potent driver of fatigue than screen-time overload per se — a finding with direct implications for instructional design in university-level online programmes under NEP 2020 implementation.