Distance Learning Student Participation in Online Supplementary Courses of a Science Degree Programme – A Pilot Study

This study was conducted in 2018 in distance learning students. The objectives of the study were to: identify the views on the importance/usefulness of Online Supplementary Components on educational experiences of the students at Level 3 (First Year) of the Faculty of Natural Science B.Sc. Degree Programme, identify the student participation in Online Supplementary Components offered by the Faculty of Natural Science at Level 3 in the B.Sc. Degree Programme, identify any associations between Leaner Support Programmes and student participation in Online Supplementary Components at Level 3 of the B.Sc. Degree Programme, identify any associations between geographical regions and student participation in Online Supplementary Components at Level 3 of the B.Sc. Degree Programme. This is a telephone questionnaire based sample survey, using closed questions. The population of the study was the 1327 students who enrolled to the B.Sc. Degree programme(BSDP) in the academic year 2016/2017 (conducted from 1st March 2017 to 21st February 2018 in the regional centres at Colombo, Kandy, Matara, Jaffna, Anuradhapura, and Batticaloa) in the Faculty of Natural Sciences in the Open University of Sri Lanka. In this study, the On-Line Supplementary Components (OLSC) offered in the discipline based courses at Level 3 in the BSDP were considered. The faculty learner support progamme – Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) was conducted, in all disciplines only in Colombo and Kandy regional centres. Randomly selected 107 students, who were active learners, comprised of 42 students (Kandy -12, Colombo -30) who attended the PASS and 65 students (Anuradhapura -3, Batticaloa -4, Colombo -30, Jaffna -5, Kandy – 17, Matara -6) who did not attend the PASS, were interviewed. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample.