In the context of the modernisation of higher education, the increasing number of students attending massive lectures as well as the connected phenomenon of disengagement, demotivation and finally drop-outs, require urgent intervention. Crowded lectures lead to less interactions and pedagogical support from teachers, disorientation and troubled access to course activities and resources for learning.   The counterpart of this situation from the students’ side is an intensification of already existing problems in the study method, particularly for those learners at the beginning of their academic experience  In fact, the lack of close support and feedback encompasses less ability to regulate learning processes. The impact of this situation is the students’ decreasing self-efficacy, low self-esteem, frustration, unmanaged extraneous cognitive load and feelings of isolation that lead to failure at exams or drop-out .

Moreover, as the numbers of students’ increase, the number of drop-outs rise, with an impact on system effectiveness and productivity: high amount of resources devoted to large numbers of students, with final achievements for a small number of students . In this context, active learning and several forms of support shape students’ performance, their sense of achievement and thus the retention rates.

This community collects research work relating this problem.