Optimal Timing in Online Task Deadlines: What if Students Procrastinate (A Little)?

Abstract

This article analyzes the distribution of deadlines for task delivery in an online learning continuous assessment framework. It looks for the optimal task delivery distribution, understanding optimal as that which allows students to maximize their performance. This empirical application is based on students enrolled on a modular subject in a Tourism Management master’s program, and the results show that continuous assessment, uniformly distributed throughout the course, leads to better performance than concentrating the evaluation on the second half or even on the last two thirds of the course. For the sake of flexibility in students’ task delivery a slight delay of less than a day can be tolerated.