The acronym ARCS stands for “attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction” and stems from John Keller’s model of motivation. From what was indicated in a section of this module regarding an ARCS research study, how email messages (from the instructor to the student) are crafted impact student motivation and retention. The ARCS method of email communication significantly lowered the rate of student withdrawal and failure rate for the treatment group. The research study led the researchers to conclude that the use of ARCS is an inexpensive approach to promote the motivation and retention of online students.
The ARCS email template would sequential components to be tailored to meet the purpose of the email message to an online (or off-line, traditional) student: Attention (“hook”), Relevance (“Why”), Confidence (“How”), Satisfaction (The “Reward”). Outside of using this type of ARCS email template when communicating with students, this might also be a good persuasive method when trying to enlist faculty members or staff to participate in committees at the educational job site.
