Retention and completion in online learning: recommended strategies for improvement
Why learner support is the heart of an effective program
If you are designing an online or blended program for busy professionals, the single most powerful lever you control is how you support learners.
When support is strong, people are more likely to stay in the program, complete activities, and actually change what they do in practice.
When support is weak or confusing, even well designed courses with great content lose many if not most learners along the way.
The three layers of support you need
You can think about learner support as three layers that reinforce each other.
- Institutional support that makes it possible for people to participate.
- Facilitator support that guides learning week by week.
- Peer support that turns a group of individuals into a learning community.
For professional development, all three layers matter, because participants are usually working full time, may be coping with professional and personal crises, and trying to apply learning in messy real-world contexts.
Institutional support: remove friction and signal that people matter
Formal education studies show that institutional support is the top factor leaders associate with online course completion. Learners themselves say that the absence of support matters (although what learners perceive may not always be useful).
For professional development, the same holds, with a few practical priorities.
Design for these.
- Clear onboarding. One simple, concrete explanation of what the program is for, what time it will take, what the main milestones are, and what support is available.
- Early interventions. Use simple data, such as missed activities or logins, to spot people who are falling behind, and reach out with short, human messages that ask what is happening and how you can help.
- All the time support. Offer at least one channel where participants can ask questions at any point, for example an email address, messaging group, or simple help desk, and respond quickly with practical answers.
- Realistic policies. Align deadlines and expectations with the reality that people are working, caring for others, and responding to emergencies, for example by allowing extensions for workload peaks, not just medical reasons.
- Support for facilitators. Provide facilitators with training, mentoring, and simple tools so that they can give good support without burning out.
In an international online professional development program for teachers, for example, adding personalized support such as short one-to-one sessions and encouragement messages increased completion rates by about ten percent for some groups.
Instructor support: scaffolding learning so no one is left alone
Research with university students shows that learners in online courses expect instructors to help them feel connected, understand what to do, and stay on track, and that weak instructor presence is linked to withdrawal.
In professional development, instructors or facilitators play a similar role, but with more emphasis on helping people apply ideas in their own context.
This is where scaffolding comes in.
Scaffolding means giving targeted support that helps learners do something today that they would not yet manage alone, then gradually reducing that support as they gain confidence and skill.
Here are five practical scaffolding moves you can build into your program.
- Start strong with procedural guidance. At the beginning, be very explicit about how to use the platform, where to find things, what a successful piece of work looks like, and how to ask for help.
- Use regular, short check ins. Weekly announcements, quick videos, or short written updates help participants know what to focus on next and reduce the sense of being lost.
- Give timely, formative feedback. Comment on early attempts while there is still time to adjust, focusing on specific behaviours that are within the learner’s control, and point them to next steps rather than only judging.
- Anticipate pressure points. Increase guidance and availability before key deadlines, because research shows that this is when learners feel the most stress and are at higher risk of dropping out.
- Fade support as people progress. As the group gains experience, shift from detailed instructions to open questions, peer advice, and reflection so that they take more responsibility for their own learning.
In an online leadership course, for example, students described scaffolding as a kind of coaching, where lecturers monitored engagement, encouraged them, corrected misconceptions, and gave direction when needed, which helped them persist and complete.
Peer support: building a community that carries learners through
Multiple studies of online and blended learning find that peer interaction is one of the strongest predictors of engagement and persistence, especially in intensive or demanding programs.
In professional development, peers also bring real world experience, local knowledge, and emotional support that no central team can fully provide.
To make peer support work, you need to design it.
Concrete peer structures you can use include:
- Small, stable groups. Place participants in small teams that stay together, so that they can get to know each other and feel safe enough to share challenges.
- Peer learning tasks. Ask peers to review each other’s plans, case examples, or reflections using simple guiding questions or checklists, so that feedback is focused and constructive.
- Shared problem solving. Use forums or live sessions where participants bring real problems from their practice, and others suggest options, share similar experiences, and adapt ideas together.
- Peer mentors. In longer programs, involve experienced alumni or more advanced participants as peer mentors, which has been shown to support both mentees and mentors.
A grounded theory study of an authentic online professional development program found that learning happened in a web of interactions where peers and mentors were central, and content and technology played a supporting role, which is directly applicable to professional communities of practice.
Translating formal education evidence to professional development
Most of the detailed evidence on retention and support comes from higher education students. Nevertheless, some patterns make sense for professional development, if you adjust for context.
Here are three insights from higher education that apply to in-service professional development:
- Many adults underestimate the time and effort that online learning will require, so you need to help them plan and manage time, not only give them content.
- Clear structure and signalling of what matters this week reduce cognitive load and make it easier to fit learning around work and family.
- Emotional connection and a sense of belonging are just as important for professionals as for students, because feeling part of something bigger makes it easier to keep going when life is difficult.
Online professional development reviews also point to some specific needs of professionals.
- Relevance and authenticity. Adults stay engaged when activities are directly tied to their real work and invite them to try things out and report back.
- Flexibility with accountability. Professionals value flexible timing, but completion improves when there are clear milestones, visible progress, and light touch reminders.
- Pathways for application. Support should include help in adapting ideas to local constraints, for example through coaching, team based projects, or mentoring, not only through individual reflection.
Designing your next program with support at the center
When you design or redesign a program, start by sketching the support system, not only the curriculum.
Ask yourself three practical questions.
- How will participants experience institutional support from the moment they hear about the program until after it ends?
- How will facilitators scaffold learning over time so that no one is left alone at the hardest points?
- How will peers help each other to stay motivated, solve problems, and turn ideas into action?
If you can give clear, concrete answers to those questions, grounded in the evidence above, you will have moved a long way toward an effective, humane program that busy professionals can complete and use in practice.
References
da Rosa Ferrarelli, L., 2015. Online scaffolding in a fully online educational leadership course. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 19(2), pp.24–35. (Repository record, no DOI reported.) Available at: https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/items/94bfea8f-a990-4509-b7e6-b93c1a20949e.
Leary, H., Dopp, C., Turley, C., Cheney, M., Simmons, Z., Graham, C.R. and Larsen, R., 2020. Professional development for online teaching: A literature review. Online Learning, 24(4), pp.254–275. Available at: https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v24i4.2198.
Muljana, P.S. and Luo, T., 2019. Factors contributing to student retention in online learning and recommended strategies for improvement: A systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 18, pp.19–57. Available at: https://doi.org/10.28945/4182.
Roddy, C., 2017. A grounded theory of professional learning in an authentic online professional development program. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(7), pp.141–160. Available at: https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i7.2923.
Roddy, C., Amiet, D.L., Chung, J., Holt, C., Shaw, L., McKenzie, S., Garivaldis, F., Lodge, J.M. and Mundy, M.E., 2017. Applying best practice online learning, teaching, and support to intensive online environments: An integrative review. Frontiers in Education, 2, 59. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2017.00059.
Sadki, R. (2024). Why asking learners what they want is a recipe for confusion. Reda Sadki. https://doi.org/10.59350/6z9yb-r4b94
Sadki, R. (2025). The great unlearning: notes on the Empower Learners for the Age of AI conference. Reda Sadki. https://doi.org/10.59350/859ed-e8148
Sharman, R., 2015. A model of peer learning incorporating scaffolding strategies. Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. (No DOI, institutional repository.) Available at: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/2d867c26-49b0-4474-b7f3-11d452e7d9bd/content.
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