How to Measure Course Performance: 14 Metrics to Track

How do you know if your online course is actually working? You spent hours creating content, designing lessons, and setting everything up. But the real question is “Does my course actually deliver?”. 

That is why like in any other business, we need to track, analyze and improve. In this article, I break down 14 key metrics you should keep an eye on. These cover student engagement, learning outcomes, student satisfaction, business performance, and community participation. 

If your numbers are lower than average, do not worry. I talked to online course creators, learning experience designers, and facilitators, and they shared their best tips on how to fix it. Plus, you can find free and helpful guides to make analyzing and improving even more efficient.

Student engagement metrics

If your students do not engage with the course content the way you expected, then who cares that you are sharing the most life-changing tips and insights, right? Here is what you should look at. 

• Completion rates

Completion rates tell you how many students stick with your course until the end. If people drop out halfway, maybe your content is too long, too hard, or just not interesting enough. To understand how many students actually completed the course, you can divide the number of students who enrolled by the number of students who received a certificate or completed your final quiz.

If that number is between 13%-40%, then your course completion rates are within the normal range. 

• Drop-off points 

If your course completion rates are below the benchmark, then we want to look at the drop-off points. Let’s say your students do not even watch half of you course content. This means that you should either revise the content or the way you deliver that course content. 

• Time spent on lessons 

The next metric to consider is the time it takes for your students to complete the course. You can use analytics tools to understand how much time they spend on your particular page or activity. 

• Active students

When you run your courses on a platform like Uteach, you can keep track of how many students are actively engaged with your course content or when they last logged in. 

How Uteach can help? 

Related: 7 Proven Strategies to Improve Your Course Completion Rates

How Uteach can help 

If you are running your courses on Uteach, you can access information on your student’s results in a simple table in your dashboard. In one glance you can see how much your student spend learning on average, how they interact with your learning materials, what is your course completion rate, and more. 

Expert tips for improvements

I talked to pro course creators and learning experience designers. And here is what Angel Rodriguez and Mariana Pena recommend to improve student engagement rates. 

• Break long videos into bite-sized lessons. No one wants to sit through a 30-minute lecture.
• Use specific examples and tell personal stories so that the students can relate. 

“One of the biggest things I learned in the very beginning for creating online courses is you got to structure it into little bite-sized nuggets that people can take. You know, five minutes, ten minutes, maybe 12 at the max, but really not no further than that. You're going to lose people's attention after that point. And that's another thing that you teach, which involves you in engagement”.

 

Angel Rodriguez

Course Creator at Uteach 

• Create quick wins for students early in your course. 
• When you use a certain term, stick to it, and do not use many synonyms to confuse the students. 

“We have to get very savvy and extract from those three one where we can create a sprint. A sprint is a quick win to give the client the feeling and the reassurance that the money that they spent on you was well spent. And if we don't do that, we're going to lose the high motivation that they had when they signed up.”

 

Mariana Pena

Instructional designer  

To learn more on how you can design an online course for the maximum learning experience, you can download our free guide “Design Your Online Course Content Checklist”. 

Learning outcome metrics 

Learning outcomes tell you if your students are actually learning or just going through the materials. Your course promises a solution to a problem. If the students do not achieve that, then the chances you would have high enrollments lowers. 

That is why you should pay attention to: 

• Quiz pass/fail rates 

Quizzes are an old school but great way to show you how well students understand the material. A high fail rate means your content might be too difficult, unclear, or missing key explanations. 

And when it comes to how high you should set the passing limit, it greatly depends on your quiz type and course. But as a general rule of thumb, you can keep the passing score no lower than 60%. 

• Certification completion rate 

This tells you how many students go all the way to the finish line and earn their certificate. It might be that your students pass all the materials yet are not able to receive the completion certificate. So, keep track of the certified students, especially if the whole point of your course is to provide them with a license or a right in your industry. 

• Pre- vs. post-course assessments

What is the best way to measure ACTUAL progress? It is when you are able to compare your student’s performance to their previous results. And if you see that the majority are not progressing much, the course materials need review. 

How Uteach can help 

When students complete the assessment, you can access detailed reporting on their results. The reports help you track the number of right/wrong answers, the time it took to complete the quiz, and the pass status for each student. 

With Uteach quiz-builder you can create assessment with various types of questions to keep it diverse, autocheck results, add prompts for the learners to facilitation, individualize the same quiz for the students, and so much more. 

Expert tips for improvements 

When discussing some best practices for incorporating assessment into your courses, I asked course creators Angel Rodriguez and Helen Hicks how they use quizzes to reinforce learning. Here are some tips they shared:

• Focus only on key information you want the students to remember.

“I limited the quizzes to about five different questions and really focusing on the key points that I want people to be able to take away. So it's really just a repetition of information”.

 

Helen Hicks

Parenting coach, Course creator 

• Think strategically when coming up with answers for multiple-choice assessments
• Keep the quizzes interactive and incorporate multiple types of questions.

“One thing you can do with multiple-choice questions is not make it glaringly obvious which is the right answer. True-and-false questions are great for quick check-ins. Whenever you have scale questions, you can use them as well. I like to use scale-type questions when we're talking about the end as far as the satisfaction scores of the course”. 

 

Angel Rodriguez

Trainer, Online Course Creator 

If you want to put these tips into practice, download our free guide “How to Make Online Quizzes Effective and Engaging for Students” to get started. 

Student satisfaction metrics 

If you want your students to recommend your course and promote it naturally, then you want to make sure they are happy with the learning experience. For this reason, you want to listen to their feedback regularly and act on it. Here are some metrics:

• Net Promoter Score 

NPS measures how likely students are to recommend your course. To measure this, you can simply survey your students, where they rate how likely they are to recommend your course on a score of 1-10. Also, you can have an additional field for open-ended questions to understand better what you should improve. 

• Course reviews and ratings 

If you have a course platform that gives you the opportunity for reviews like Uteach, you are lucky.  If not, you can create a survey and ask your students to rate the course depending on some criteria, like content, delivery, experience, etc. 

Related: How to Effectively Collect Feedback on Online Courses 

How Uteach can help 

With your course platform, you have a built-in tool to survey your students and collect data with forms. As they complete the survey, you can use the CRM system and keep track of their data. 

When it comes to courses, you can enable students to leave questions on the episodes, or rate your course and leave a review. 

Expert tips for improvements  

When we were discussing how one can improve course satisfaction and engagement, Linda Haddad, an online teacher, emphasized the idea of checking in with your students. 

• Ask for feedback mid-course, not just at the end.
• Collect feedback and always act on it.
• Take time to evaluate yourself as an instructor. 

“So, one of the key things I always use is to ask them for feedback. At the beginning and at the end of each session, I always make sure to ask if they are getting the benefit that they were expecting out of the course. Is there anything I can do differently, and what is their interest? So we always agree together on what the next course is going to be”. 

 

Linda Haddad, Online teacher

If you want an example of a survey you can send to the students to understand their satisfaction scores, download our free guide “Online Course Evaluation Template”. 

Business performance metrics 

Your business metrics are no less important than the course performance itself. So, you should also pay attention to the following:

• Conversion rates

The conversion rate tells you how many visitors turn into paying students. If 1,000 people visit your course page and 50 enroll, your conversion rate is 5%. A good benchmark? According to statistics, the average conversion rates are 3%-7%, depending on the industry. 

• Retention rates

Retention rates show how many students stay engaged after enrolling. When your students get value from your courses and products, they are more likely to enroll in others. You can measure the retention rates by dividing the number of students who completed the course by the number that enrolled. 

Related: 9 Strategies to Reduce Dropout Rates in Online Courses

• Refund rate 

The reasons students can ask for refunds are different. Perhaps you have already developed a policy that regulates refunds. If you have refund cases, make sure you understand what makes the student regret their purchase.  

Expert tips for improvements 

In an interview with me, Eli Natoli, who is a marketer and course creator, emphasized how important it is to communicate the value of your course. Because you want to be sure students clearly understand what they can expect from your course. Here are a few suggestions:

• Communicate the learning objectives clearly in your marketing and pages
• Have multiple formats to deliver your lessons
• Send your students automatic reminders to bring them back on track 

“One of the ways you can encourage them to get to the finish line is through mobile applications. Ensure to utilize mobile notifications and gamification to help them progress and finally get to the finish line”. 

 

Eli Natoli

Course Creator, Coach, and Marketing Strategist

Community engagement metrics 

Another important factor when it comes to your course analytics is tracking how the students interact with your online school outside the recorded lessons or materials. So, you can also pay attention to :

• Live events participations 

If you host webinars or other live events, keep an eye on how many people register/enroll and how many actually join. Usually, the average attendance rate for live events is 30%-50%. 

• Community activities 

Learning does not just happen in the videos. It also happens in discussions and interactions with peers. So, if you run a community,  look at forum posts, group chats, and comment sections. The way your students interact tells a lot about the course experience you provide. 

Related: 13 Strategies to Boost Student Engagement in Online Learning

Expert tips for improvements 

Jan Keck, a creator and virtual facilitator, believes that the engagement does not happen that easily. You have to facilitate and foster it. That is why he made it a habit to constantly check in with his students. Jan also suggests using self-evaluation techniques and give yourself feedback for each of those live interactions. 

“I made it a habit to constantly keep checking in with my group in those really small asks for engagement. And that could be give me a thumbs up if you're ready to go to the next section. They could give me like a real thumbs up in the camera. They can use the reaction buttons.. And usually I switch this up whenever. I don't want it to get boring”. 

 

Jan Keck

Course Creator, Learning Experience Designer

All the efforts are worth it

As you make consistent efforts in tracking your student’s results and your course performance, the next important step is acting on it. To improve each KPI you can follow the tips discussed in this article. The results will not keep you waiting for long. 

And if you are looking for an online course platform to start, your best choice can be Uteach. The platform provides you with all the opportunities to manage your course content and your students, check their reports and performance. 

And most importantly, you can also track your sales, revenue, and achieve your business goals. Start your free trial today and make your efforts more efficient.