Predictive Drivers Of Students Satisfaction In Open Distance Learning In Sri Lanka

The predictive drivers of students satisfaction in Open Distance Learning ODL has become an important and competitive criterion in service quality perspectives in higher education HE. The customer service quality act as an antecedent of customer satisfaction and their relationship has beenempirically proved by many of the researchers following literature based onmarketing.Distance Education DE is introduced as a supplementary method in the higher education system for the disadvantaged and for those who have missed entering the traditional university system of higher education due to restrictions on the number of students allowed for university admission. The DE system removed the barriers of minimum qualifications for the courses giving moreopportunity to the public to obtain higher educational qualifications from recognised universities operating under the Open Distance Learning ODL concept. The ODL system developed rapidly with the increase in number of students but does not reflect the number of students passing out as graduates. Just as in consumer behavior in marketing literature most of the researchers have addressed the relationships between students perceived service quality satisfaction students persistence and attrition. The development of information technology influences ODL in a positive way by giving more interaction with web based on-line and e-learning systems. The problem of student dropouts or students attrition encountered not in the early DE environment dayseven in the on-line courses have been observed as high. Many research studies have disclosed the reasons for this situation and recommendations made to increase and assess the quality of the programmes. This studywill examine the relationships between the independent variables of Reliability Cost 26Time and Website Content and dependent variable of Students Satisfaction. This study was conducted in the six main regional centers of the OUSL spread across the island. The sample size used was 760 undergraduate students who have more thanor equaled at least one years exposure with the ODL system. The statistical analysis revealed all the independent variables were significantly related with the Students Satisfaction.