Students’ Perception of the Quality of Learner Support Services in National Open University of Nigeria

Abstract

Learner support is an important benchmark of open and distance learning because of the character of the learners and the temporal separation of the learner and the teacher. But the level of importance attached to these services and the level of satisfaction may vary according to gender. Thus this study examines the perception of students on the quality of learner support services in Port Harcourt study centre of NOUN. Two research questions and two hypotheses were posed and tested. The methodology adopted is a descriptive survey method, the instrument for data collection was questionnaire and the statistical tools used were mean, standard deviation and t test. The result of the test of hypotheses indicates that there were no significant differences in the level of importance and level of satisfaction between male and female learners. However, the study indicates that male learners attached less importance to learner support services and are less satisfied with the quality of the services. Our conclusion is that given the high mean score of the level of importance and the low mean score for the level of satisfaction the quality of learner support is not as high as the students would expect. This therefor calls for an improvement in the quality of learner support services to sustain learners’ commitment and continuity in the programme in NOUN.

Keywords: Learner Support Services, Distance learners, Adults, Tutorials