It is widely recognised that student support is critical for overcoming barriers to learning and ensuring learner engagement, motivation, and success in online higher education. Although many support strategies are available for review, there have been no attempts to systematically analyze them in relation to the different stages of student learning. As a result, there is a lack of understanding of where and when student support can be embedded into the online learning curriculum. This project aimed to address this issue and answered the following research question: What support strategies can be offered to online students at different phases of the learning cycle? In doing so, this project developed a framework for embedding support strategies into different stages of the online learning cycle that can be used by online learning designers and educators.

By bringing together research on reported support strategies and interventions, this project aimed to develop a framework for embedding support interventions into various stages of the online learning cycle that can be used by online learning designers and educators.

Research outcomes

• Rotar, O. (2022). Online student support: a framework for embedding support interventions into the online learning cycle. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 17(1), 1-23.
• Rotar, O. (2022). A missing theoretical element of online higher education student attrition, retention, and progress: A systematic literature review. SN Social Sciences, 2(12), 278.
• Rotar, O. (2021) Designing and developing courses that prioritise online student support [Blog].