Online Course Retention: Decrease Your E-learning Student Churn

Keeping students isn’t as much of a priority as finding students when launching online courses. Students that stay and engage with your E-learning platform help entice other students to sign up for your educational services. But no matter how hard you try, there will be student churn in your online course. And exceeding a particular churn rate can be problematic for future course goals.

To increase online course retention and decrease E-learning student churn, you will need to answer the question, “Why do online students drop out?” Knowing why your online students are dropping out or churning can help decrease the churn rate and improve customer retention.

Why Do Students Drop Out of Online Courses?

Figuring out why students drop out of online courses is half the battle of reducing the churn rate. Reducing the dropout rate minimizes the cost of acquiring new students, as well.

You must understand the engagement frequency of a student to understand the churn or dropout rate. The amount a student engages with the E-learning platform determines whether or not they will churn. When looking for students that are likely to churn, you should be looking for two kinds of students.

 These types of students are:

·       Those that miss too many engagements or classes.

·       Those that are likely to burn out.

Your ability to pinpoint either of these students will help you know when to send out a churn prevention email. It will also help you know when to offer incentives and when to tell a student to slow down, avoiding churn altogether.

There are several reasons why missing engagements and burnout are the two most likely causes of student churn.

Underestimating an Online Course

Many students have an idealistic expectation about the courses they are taking. They start by thinking they can complete the course without putting a lot of effort into the course. Then, halfway through the course, they realize they cannot continue. Ultimately, they churn because they are unable to cope with the demands of the course.

Lacking Pre-Requisite Knowledge

Many online courses teach students advanced knowledge. For a student to understand the advanced material, they need to have the fundamentals of the course down first. Therefore, students who register for an online course will most likely churn because they do not know their basics.

Poor Course Delivery

An E-learning platform can experience a high student churn rate if it has poor course delivery. Poor course delivery can be a result of problems with technology. In addition, it can be due to a poor line of communication between the students and the instructors. Therefore, a student may churn due to frustration from technological issues or isolation caused by a lack of communication.

Deceptive Course Content

When students sign up for a course, they expect what they will learn and how the course will pan out. A student may churn if they discover what they expected is different from how the class is being run or what they are learning is different from what they expected.

Lack of Motivation

A student can quickly lose motivation when taking an online course. It can be due to several causes, which include all the items mentioned above. When it happens, a student may be more likely to churn.

With these reasons in mind, you can decrease the student churn rate.

Decreasing E-learning Student Churn

When you run an E-learning platform, all you want to do is to find ways of engaging students with your content. Therefore, the more students engage with your courses, the lower the chances of churning.

Below are some strategies for decreasing online course churning.

Consider the Student Perspective

For you to understand why students churn, you must think like one. Therefore, you will want to look at your entire E-learning platform through the eyes of your students. What would they like to learn? How would they like the class to be taught? What rewards can you give them? These are good questions to ask yourself when planning your online courses.

You will want to consider a few things when gaining the students’ perspective.

·       The layout of your platform.

·       How to navigate through the options and menus.

·       How to access resources and communicate with instructors or customer support.

The easier it is to use your platform, the less likely students will drop out of your online courses. In addition, you will want the payment options on your E-learning platform to always be working. You will not want to keep losing customers and money because of failed payments. You will want to work closely with your programmer to ensure you give your customers the best service possible.

Create Accurate Course Descriptions

Before students sign up for your online courses, they will read through the course description. This content tells them what to expect from each program. When you present accurate information about your course, a student can decide whether to register or not. If they do decide to join, the expectations will be clear. Therefore, they will be less likely to churn.

Ensure an Engaging Experience

As stated earlier, an engaging experience helps to not contribute to a high churn rate. Make sure students’ efforts are rewarded. Also, make sure students can participate in the courses without fear of prejudice or shame.

Make Students Feel Like They Belong

You need to ensure students are never isolated from instructors and other students. When students feel like they belong, it improves engagement and prevents churning.

Listen to Students

To know why students drop out of online courses, you need to listen to their feedback. It would be best if you made it easy for your students and team to communicate.  

You can ease student's access to you by:

·       Providing an end-of-the-course review.

·       Encouraging students to contact support or the instructors when they have concerns.

·       Make the process of contacting your team easy by making contact options visible on your platform.

Your ability to collect information from students can help you improve the overall experience of your online courses.

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Conclusion

Decreasing your E-learning student churn is essential to the success of your online courses. Your ability to minimize student churn rate relates to the level of engagement. Lack of engagement is the primary reason why students churn. When students are engaged with the content of your online platform, they are less likely to drop out of an online course.