Encouraging student participation in online teaching and learning has become one of the most consequential pedagogical problems in contemporary higher education, not because the technology has failed, but for the reason the pedagogy surrounding it often is less effective. This article draws on empirical and theoretical sources to examine what actually works. It argues for a particular claim: the instructional approach matters more than the platform; active and collaborative designs consistently outperform passive ones; and engagement cannot be designed into a course without also attending to the psychological resources students bring to it. Experimental evidence from a synchronous online workshop, a systematic review of digital technology and engagement, an inquiry-based study of asynchronous learning, and psychological research on information literacy and self-efficacy all point in the same direction. The article is addressed more to practitioners than to theorists, and it concludes not with a framework but with questions instructors should ask about their own course designs.
Stanţieru et al. (Sun,) studied this question.