Are you still engaged? Leveraging the LMS to Support Engagement in Asynchronous Courses

Introduction: Asynchronous online courses are plagued with the challenge of engaging students consistently.Behavioral interventions, such as bottlenecks (enforced deadlines) and nudges (automated reminders), may modulate behaviors that lead to engagement and can now be easily applied and measured in a Learning Management System (LMS).Methods: This study included three groups of three asynchronous online courses each over three academic quarters.Two distinct behavioral interventions, bottlenecks and nudges, were implemented to increase engagement with the course compared to non-intervention controls. Results:The results showed that behavioral intervention tools increase student engagement with course materials by measures of increased student access to the course and reduced time to quiz completion.However, there was no significant impact in grades across the three groups. Conclusion:The use of nudges and bottlenecks as behavioral interventions to increase engagement in asynchronous courses for Clinical and Translational Science Education is recommended as part of best practice in course design with the same or similar structure.