BACKGROUND
Students enrolled in online courses need to be able to handle self-regulated learning and to plan, prioritize and manage schedules set by online instructors. Reminders may be a potential tool to improve the timeliness of students’ study behaviour, but previous research shows that the effect of reminders differs between types of reminders, if it is personalized or general, and depending on the background of the students.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study is to test if personalized email reminders, as compared to generalized email reminders, in a program with adult participants affect the timeliness towards completion of their scheduled online coursework.
METHODS
Weekly email reminders were sent to all participants enrolled in an online program with 39 professional learners from three East African countries. All participants in the program Online Education for Leaders in Nutrition and Sustainability (OneLearns), that uses a question-based learning methodology, were randomly assigned to either personalized or general reminders for 5 months.
RESULTS
In total, 585 email-based reminders were sent out, of which 390 were generalized reminders and 195 were personalized. A Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression was used to estimate the difference in the probability of being on time with one's studies. The probability of being on time was 14%-points (95% CI [3%, 25%]) higher following personalized reminders compared to following generalized reminders. For a course with 100 participants, this means 14 more would be on time.
CONCLUSIONS
There was a positive effect of personalized reminders as compared to general reminders, in a group of adults working full-time at the same time as they were enrolled in an online educational program. Considering how small the intervention was, adding a few words and information to a reminder, we think this effect is fairly impressive.