Title: an Investigation of the Problems Faced by the Centre Network of the Open University

Title: An investigation of the problems faced by the centre network of the Open University of Sri Lanka in the provision of student support services

Lalith Ranjan Gonsalkorala, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, OUSL, Sri Lanka

Abstract: Just as any other Open University or distance educational institution in the world, the OUSL is concerned about the satisfaction of its students about their studies. One major reason for the concern is that dissatisfaction leads to dropping out of students. Undoubtedly high rate of dropouts mean high wastage of resources. Therefore these institutions are concerned about student satisfaction and a common approach to ensure satisfaction is to provide support services to the students. The expectation of the institutions is to increase student satisfaction and hence decrease dropouts so that success rates would increase.

A strategy adopted by the OUSL similar to many other open and distance educational institutions in the world is to operate a center network in order to facilitate provision of Student Support Services (SSS). At the same time, the centers of the center network themselves face problems in the provision of support services and these in turn can affect student satisfaction. However, studies on the relationship between student satisfaction and the problems faced by centres are almost non-existent. The research literature reveals that there are other factors such as Quality of SSS, Utility of SSS and Personal Factors affecting student satisfaction.

This study aimed to find the effect of the problems faced by the center network on student satisfaction as well as its position in the order of significance of the factors affecting student satisfaction. Six centres were selected for the study from the centre network of the OUSL through stratified random sampling. Data were collected from a student sample of 718 students and also from 42 staff members. The instruments, used to collect data were questionnaires, interview schedules and an Observation schedule. The analysis of data was mainly quantitative and the technique of multiple regression from SPSS was used. The findings of the study revealed that the factor, Problems faced by the centres, has a significant effect on student satisfaction. The order of significance for the four factors under investigation in their effects on student satisfaction was Quality of SSS, Problems faced by centres, Utility of SSS and Personal Factors. The overall satisfaction of the sample of students about SSS provided to them by the centres was found to be above average. The qualitative data- collected and analyzed- revealed the problems faced by the center network of the OUSL in the provision of student support services. Problems faced by centres in the provision of each support service component were identified and suggestions made to minimize those problems. The paper relates to the sub theme “the provision of learning support”.

Introduction

The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) is the only national university in Sri Lanka, which conducts educational programmes in the open and distance mode. The university has by now completed 25 years of existence and at present caters to a student population of around 23000 by offering nearly 50 programmes of study, ranging from foundation and certificate programmes to post graduate degree programmes. The study system of the OUSL is the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system, which involves a substantial amount of self-learning on the part of the students.

However the Sri Lanken students are more used to the traditional way of learning. They are used to being taught by the teachers rather than engage in self-learning. Therefore those who study in the distance mode as students of the OUSL face problems in coping up with their studies. Some of them become dissatisfied with the facilities provided for their studies and tend to dropout. The considerable rate of dropouts from the programmes of study conducted by the OUSL is an indicator of this situation.

The OUSL therefore, just as many other open universities and distance educational institutions all over the world, is very concerned about student satisfaction on facilities provided for their studies. This is because decrease of student satisfaction has been identified as a major factor, which leads to dropout of students. Undoubtedly this is wastage of resources both from the institutional point of view and the students’ point of view. Therefore in order to minimize this situation Open Universities and other distance educational institutions all over the world are constantly engaged in efforts of increasing student satisfaction on facilities provided for their studies. The main thrust of these efforts is to provide support services to students so that their studies can be facilitated and that their satisfaction about studying can be improved. The OUSL is also no exception to this and provides support services to the students. The main purpose of providing support services is to increase student satisfaction. In order to provide student support services (SSS), the OUSL employs many mechanisms or strategies.

One of the mechanisms or strategies employed by the OUSL for that purpose is the operation of a center network. In ODL, one barrier, the students face is the barrier of distance. By operating a center network that is spread all over the island this barrier has been lowered to a considerable extent. The center network, which consists of nearly thirty centers, provides support services to the students. However in the process of providing various support services to the students the centers themselves face problems. The problems faced by the centers themselves may again affect student satisfaction.

However student satisfaction may not entirely depend on the problems faced by the centers. When considering student satisfaction there may be other factors, which have a bearing on student satisfaction. One of the important factors would be the quality of SSS provided. In addition to these institutional factors there may be some individual factors affecting satisfaction. One of them is how far the students use the support services or in other words their utilization of support services. At the same time there can be some individual factors such as age, which could affect student satisfaction.

The OUSL is concerned about student satisfaction, as the related issue of dropout is a big problem as indicated earlier. From the OUSL’s point of view, if at least the institutional based factors could be controlled it would definitely contribute to an increase in student satisfaction and in turn to a decrease in dropout. Therefore a study of the factors –both institutional and individual – affecting student satisfaction would be useful to the OUSL.

However one of the factors, which in my view has not received enough attention over the years are the problems faced by the centers in the context of student satisfaction. Therefore in my study of the factors affecting student satisfaction I pay special attention to the investigation of the problems faced by the centers of the OUSL and to their place in a hierarchical list of factors affecting student satisfaction.

Theoretical background

Open and distance learners face many problems during their studies due to various reasons and it has been widely accepted that they need support to overcome those problems. Otherwise they may become dissatisfied and even dropout from their studies.

Problems faced by Open and Distance learners

Learners who are unfamiliar with open and distance learning face problems in their studies. Various researchers have reported about those problems. Raghunath[16 ] from his study based in the Indian context, classified the learners’ problems thus:

a)  Those concerned with study skills and learning difficulties.

b)  Those resulting from the new experience of interaction with a distant institution.

c)  Those arising from personal circumstances.

Selvem[18] from his study also in the Indian context reported, as a finding that a problem open and distance learners face is the lack of facility to discus subject matter with peers. Holmberg[8] surmised on a theoretical basis that combining distance study with oral tuition causes some difficulties to learners that have not however always been coped with successfully. Lekamge et al[12] reported that it would be wrong to assume that adult learners have the ability and the relevant information to make decisions about courses to be selected and skills and knowledge required in achieving their educational goals. This view was strengthened by Robinson (in Bhalalusea, [1] who stated that very few learners are able to function as completely independent learners, immediately on entry to distance learning programmes. Open and distance learners who face these problems and experience difficulties may tend to dropout from their study programmes.

Student Support Services

Comacho et al [2] in their study of barriers to completion of a distance education programme recommended support for all students to prevent dropout. Holmberg[8] stated that all institutions make all kind of efforts to support students in order to prevent dropout. It is actually seen that many open universities and other open and distance educational institutions provide student support services (SSS) to their students. UNESCO[22] states that most distance education systems provide support for students. According to Raghunath[16] a mechanism adopted by most open universities and other distance educational institutions to facilitate the provision of SSS was to operate centre networks.

Centre Networks

Several researchers have focused their attention on centre networks of open universities and other distance educational institutions. Among them were Gooly[6], Keegan (1994)[10], and Pluist[15]. Still others have paid attention to the centres of the centre network such as regional centres and study centres. The studies of Manjulika and Reddy[14] and Tait[21] have shed more light on various aspects of study and regional centres such as importance, needs, role and functions.

Problems faced by students due to weaknesses in the provision of SSS

Roberts et al[17] found that the return rate of unmarked assignments and the quality of feedback comments in assignments were very alarming. Dillon et al[4] who based their study on Oklohoma Televised Instruction System also reported poor library resources as one of the problems faced by students. They were also concerned about inadequate physical facilities. Other researchers such as Manjlika and Reddy[14], Selvam[18], Gupta[7], and Sharma[19] also investigated the problems faced by students due to the weaknesses in the provision of SSS. Their findings were similar to those stated above while some other problems were also highlighted by them. In the OUSL context, Jayathissa[9] and Lekamge et al[12] conducted research in this area and identified some problems, which students face. One of the main findings of both studies was the failure to provide course materials on time. All these problems faced by students in obtaining support in turn can affect their satisfaction.

Student Satisfaction

Holmberg[8] emphasized the importance of student satisfaction. Various other researchers also focused their attention on student satisfaction.

Factors affecting student satisfaction

In research literature, the factors affecting student satisfaction are categorized into two groups as institutionalized factors and individual factors.

Institutional factors affecting student satisfaction

The ODL institutions themselves cause these factors and the students have no control over them. An institutional factor identified in the review of literature is the quality of SSS. Among the researchers who investigated the effect of quality of SSS on student satisfaction are Roberts et al[17], Fung and Carr[5] and Simpson[20]. All their studies revealed that the quality of SSS has a significant effect on student satisfaction.

Another institutional factor, problems faced by the centres in the provision of SSS may affect student satisfaction. Manjulika and Reddy[14] and Lockwood and Gooly[13] among others studied about the problems faced by the centres. However there seems to be a gap in the research literature as no worthwhile studies were found on the effect of the problems faced by centres on student satisfaction.

Individual factors affecting student satisfaction

The individual factors are those factors related to the students and about which the ODL institution has no control. One such factor is the utilization of SSS. Several researchers have investigated the factor, utility of SSS. Kember and Decker[11], and Fung and Carr[5] are prominent among them. Cuseo[3] showed that there is a positive relationship between utilization of support services and completion of studies.

Then according to the available research literature, individual factors such as age, gender etc also affect student satisfaction. Kember and Decker[11], Selvam[18] and Wai-Yee and Taplin[23] paid attention to how these personal factors of students such as age, marital statues, educational qualifications at entry etc affect student satisfaction. Wai-Yee and Taplin found that gender has an effect on student satisfaction from their study based in Open Learning Institute of Hong Kong (OLIHK).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS, OBJECTIVES AND HYPOTHESES

The study is designed to address the following main research question of the study.

‘How significant is the effect of problems faced by the center network of the OUSL on the level of student satisfaction?’

Objectives

The objectives formulated for the study are given below.

1. Identify the student support services provided by the OUSL

2. Find the level of student satisfaction regarding the student support services provided by the OUSL

3. Find the perception of students of the quality of support services provided by the centre network of the OUSL

4. Find the level of utilization of support services provided by the OUSL

5. Identify the problems faced by the centre network of the OUSL in the provision of student support services

6. Find the order of significance of the effects of quality of student support services, utilization of support services, the personal factor and the problems faced by the centre network of the OUSL in the provision of student support services on student satisfaction.

7. To make suggestions to overcome the problems faced by the centre network of the OUSL in the provision of support services and to enhance the same.

The hypotheses

1.There is no significant effect of the quality of the student support services provided by the OUSL center network on student satisfaction.

2.There is no significant effect of the problems faced by the center network of the OUSL on student satisfaction.

3.There is no significant effect of the utilization of the student support services on student satisfaction in the OUSL context.

4.There is no significant effect of the personal factors on student satisfaction in the OUSL context.