No Benefit for High-Dosage Time Management Interventions in Online Courses

In past work, time management interventions involving prompts, alerts, and planning tools have successfully nudged students in online courses, leading to higher engagement and improved performance. However, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of these interventions over time, understanding if the effectiveness maintains or changes based on dosage (i.e., how often an intervention is provided). In the current study, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to test if the effect of a time management intervention changes over repeated use. Students at an online computer science course were randomly assigned to receive interventions based on two schedules (i.e., high-dosage vs. low-dosage). We ran a two-way mixed ANOVA, comparing students' assignment start time and performance across several weeks. Unexpectedly, we did not find a significant main effect from the use of the intervention, nor was there an interaction effect between the use of the intervention and week of the course.