Program Evaluation on Learning Materials, Tutors, Assessment Matters and Overall Program Structure from ODL Students' Perspective

Abstract

Open Distance Learning (ODL) is an approach in education practices in Open University Malaysia (OUM). One of its programs that are offered through ODL is the Bachelor of Psychology (BPSY) and it is one of the programs with the highest student intake in OUM. Since the program has been commencing for more than 10 years, it is the time to evaluate whether the program needs any revisions or improvements. Thus, the aim of the study is to determine the level of satisfaction of students on the Psychology program offered in OUM. A questionnaire was developed for this purpose which includes 4 areas of students' satisfaction, namely the learning materials, student perceptions on their tutors, assessment matters, as well as the overall program structure. The questionnaires were distributed to more than 1000 active students through online and face-to-face tutorials. A total of 439 students participated in the study. The results indicated that students are most satisfied with the overall program structure and least satisfied with the assessment matters with the mean score of 3.98 and 3.59 respectively. The study certainly benefits the university in taking action to revise and improve the program. Recommendation for future research is included at the end of the paper.

Perception and Satisfaction Among Open and Distance Learning Students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

“…Therefore, they preferred simple assignments over anything else. This particular finding was congruent with a past study by Kamarulzaman and Siew [22], who also concluded that students were least satisfied with the assessment matter.…”

“…Therefore, it was proven that the ODL programme at UTM was professionally structured. Similarly, a previous study by Kamarulzaman and Siew [22] which was conducted at Open University Malaysia (OUM), also found that students were most satisfied with the ODL programme structure.…”

“…Questionnaire is the only instrument used in this research. Items were adopted from previous studies made by Upadhayaya et al [4] and Kamarulzaman and Siew [22] respectively. There are three sections in total.…”

“…Section B is about Students' Perception towards Open and Distance Learning (ODL) developed by Upadhayaya et al [4]. The third section -Section C is Students' Satisfaction with ODL, which was adopted from a study by Kamarulzaman and Siew [22]. For both Section B and Section C, 5-point Likert scale was used ranging from 'Very Disagree (VD)' to 'Very Agree (VA)'.…”

“…As for students' satisfaction with ODL, in a local setting, Kamarulzaman and Siew [22] conducted a study at Open University Malaysia (OUM) to evaluate one of the ODL programmes offered. According to the researchers, the programme has been around for more than a decade; thus, evaluations need to be carried out.…”