The impact of personalized deadline reminders via Microsoft Teams and Moodle calendar on assignment submission and completion rates

Objectives This study investigated the effectiveness of two digital deadline reminder strategies—a researcher-authored, friendly-toned announcement delivered through Microsoft Teams and a standard automated calendar/email notification generated by Moodle—compared with a control condition receiving no additional reminders. The study examined differences in on-time assignment submission rates and average submission delays among higher education students. Methodology An A/B/C comparative design with random assignment was employed involving 138 male and female students enrolled in the Introduction to Educational Technology course at the College of Basic Education in Kuwait during the second semester of the 2024–2025 academic year. Participants were allocated equally to three groups: a researcher-authored Microsoft Teams reminder group, an automated Moodle reminder group, and a control group. Five assignments were monitored over a ten-week intervention period, and submission data were obtained from Moodle activity logs. Results Statistically significant differences were observed among the three groups. Students receiving researcher-authored, friendly-toned reminders through Microsoft Teams demonstrated the highest mean on-time submission rate (94.22%) and the shortest mean submission delay (5.18 h). Students receiving automated Moodle reminders recorded an on-time submission rate of 85.65% and an average delay of 15.45 h, while the control group recorded 75.22% and 30.89 h, respectively. The effect sizes were substantial ( η 2 = 0.289 for on-time submission and η 2 = 0.639 for submission delay), although the latter estimate requires cautious interpretation because of the distributional characteristics of the delay variable. Conclusion The findings suggest that proactive digital reminder strategies can support students’ adherence to assignment deadlines. The researcher-authored, friendly-toned reminder strategy delivered through Microsoft Teams was associated with more favorable submission outcomes than the default automated Moodle reminder strategy. However, because the interventions differed simultaneously in communication platform, message content, authorship, and delivery format, the observed differences cannot be attributed to platform characteristics alone. The findings highlight the potential importance of reminder design and delivery practices while emphasizing the need for future research that independently examines the contributions of individual reminder components.