Benefits and Challenges of ODeL in Postgraduate Education: The Case of Unisa–Ethiopia

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on identifying the benefits and the challenges of the open distance e-learning mode of education and their relationship with learners’ satisfaction. A total of 78 master’s and doctoral graduates responded to a 35-item 7-dimensional Likert-scale questionnaire that consisted of 2 open-ended items that allowed respondents to write their reflections. Means, standard deviations, Pearson’s correlation and stepwise regression were used to analyse the quantitative data, whereas the data from the open-ended items were analysed thematically. The results showed that studying in the open distance e-learning system assists learners to develop professional competence, personality skills and computer skills. It has given them access to postgraduate education, accomplishment of problem-solving research, studying from the comfort of home while earning a living, access to rich library resources, and increased life skills such as research language and independent learning. Although the benefits outweighed the challenges, the main challenge that stood out in this paper was the lack of supervision support. Other challenges were loss of motivation, procrastination, poor internet connections, lack of human touch, and lack of support from employers. The paper recommends that open distance e-learning institutions improve their supervision systems and ensure that their student support systems contribute to curbing students’ challenges including feelings of isolation.