Student support services in open schooling: a case study of students' needs and satisfaction in India

Abstract

Incl. bibl., abstract

This paper identifies the key factors that contribute to the Open School in India students' satisfaction, considering student support elements at pre-entry, start up, learning, evaluation and certification and after certification phases. The study adapted Rekkedal and Eriksen's importance-satisfaction model to recognise areas that are important to students as well as their degree of satisfaction with each attribute. It is found that the student group considered is generally satisfied with the support elements that they perceive to be important and there is a strong positive linear relationship (r =0.83) between importance and satisfaction. However, according to the group, priority needs to be given to personal contact programmes in the study centres, online tutorials and feedback on assignments, which are three prime support elements in the learning phase.