Increasing online attendance using insignificantly impactful extra credit as positive reinforcement

The purpose of this research was to investigate if the addition of extra credit affected the overall rate of attendance to synchronous lectures in an online asynchronous course, compared to courses in which no extra credit was offered. Further I investigated if the amount of extra credit made a difference to the rate of attendance. I collected data from 10 courses and found that offering low levels of extra credit led to more students attending lectures. This could lead to students having better interactions with peers and instructors, enjoying their classes more, and/or achieving better academic results.