The importance of being present. a two-part model approach to assess the impact of synchronous online learning on the academic success of university students

Maximizing the academic success of university students is one of the most important challenges for teachers and universities. In the context of online universities, to achieve this goal, teachers must be able to offer students quality learning experiences in both asynchronous and synchronous modes. Synchronous online learning (SOL) enables teachers to engage with their students in real-time despite being physically separated by geographical distance. This study involves first year students of the bachelor’s degree programs of the academic year 2022/2023 of an Italian online university. The aim is to measure the effect of the number of synchronous activities performed by students, together with other variables related to students’ demographic attributes and academic background, on students’ educational success. In this case, educational success is measured by the number of credits gained by students after one year, a variable with an irregular distribution that has a mode in the value zero. This research employs a two-part model: logistic for the zeroes and quantile for positive counts. The results show that synchronous activities enhance the predictive power to forecast students’ performances in terms of university credits, which can be useful for the delivery of personalized learning activities and prevent early drop-out.