Part 1

Perspectives on Learner Support

 Research themes 

It is necessary to highlight a range of themes to give the research coherence, although each case study has its own focus due to the uniqueness of each situation and due to the fact that learner support is a response to particular contexts. It must be reiterated that as learner support is not always generaliseable, it is difficult to establish a generic research model across programmes and certain issues will be emphasised at the expense of other issues in each case study. A more detailed description of the main themes explored in the case studies appears below.

1.  The programme

In order to set the scene in which learner support is being offered it was necessary to offer a brief description of the programme, its aims and goals and the mode of delivery In this section of the report, the target audience; number of learners registered; and pass and fail rates as well as learner attrition rates (where easily accessible) were collated. Of key importance was the target audience and who the learners are, for example in relation to their previous education, the gap which may exist between their entry level knowledge and skills and those required by the programme, as well as access to resources. 

            2.  What is the relationship between learner support and the distance education programme as a whole? 

Discrete elements of the learning process should be coordinated and elements of the learning programme, including learner support, need to fit together as a coherent whole (Siaciwena, op cit.). Sewart (1992) reinforces the importance of not dividing elements of distance education into discreet units and not introducing learner support services as “add ons”. The lesson from open universities in particular is the importance of planning and integrating support services from the outset into the overall design of the programme and institution. 

3.  What is the learner support strategy and purpose of the strategy? 

This theme explores a range of strategies and their purposes that appear particularly relevant in the light of current South African practice. These strategies include:

	Group tutorials
	Individual consultation
	Peer group study
	Mentoring
	Feedback through assessment, etc.

Group tutorials

Possibly the most common form of learner support in South Africa is group tutorials. According to Moffat (1997):

One advantage of face-to-face contact is its ability to provide synchronous interaction with lecturers and peers for instruction, clarification, personal support, and discussion, which can prove to be both motivating and stimulating for students and staff. 

There is, however, on-going debate about the usefulness of contact or residential sessions in distance education programmes relative to their cost. The cost of transport is an issue as learners often cannot afford the cost of transport to contact sessions. Although various studies have made claims about desirable and undesirable trends in contact sessions, it is difficult to make a blanket statement about their value. Individual tutoring may vary widely, with some tutors being more professional, dedicated and supportive, so that even within the same institution or programme, there can be vast inconsistencies in the way that sessions are run. 

Much of the literature on distance education has argued that tutorials are a vital form of support if distance education learners are to succeed (Chung, 1983) and that there need to be interventions to compensate for the limitations of written instruction. SAIDE, in its interactions with distance education service providers, strongly advocates the provision of some form of direct human contact to support learners. 

However there are those who maintain that tutorials are not necessary in distance education. Chaturvedi (1960) sums up the debate as follows:

There are those who claim that an excellent teaching package is all that is needed and that student support services, especially of a face-to-face kind, are peripheral or even a watering down of the pure form of distance teaching. On the other hand, some claim that no true university education can take place without a meeting of the minds and that the normal means for achieving this form of academic socialization is face-to-face contact on the university campus. 

According to some, in distance education the text is meant to replace the teacher and as Paul (1990) points out, “The more extreme practitioners of this art have even suggested an ideal of ‘teacher proof’ courses, ones so well designed that students are better off without the assistance of a teacher or tutor.” Paul points out that instructional designers aim to design courses so that they stand on their own. In this conception a tutor’s role is merely to assist the learner in understanding the course, but he notes that “A good tutor will want to adapt the materials to local needs, to introduce new materials and to ‘teach’ the students in ways not originally envisaged by the course design. This can cause problems, both for the implementation of the course and for the role of the tutor.” While it is commonly deemed good practice for tutors to make the course meaningful to the learners, externally set exams may not reflect the perspective introduced by the tutors (who usually have no control over the exam) and this may not be to the benefit of the learners.

There are also those who believe that while it is true that some materials are better than others, even the best materials can never meet the different needs of learners and “A teacher or tutor is there to mediate between the course and the learner, to help the latter to adapt and to apply materials to his or her own purposes and contexts” (Paul, 1990). 

Agboola (1993) examined the need for and usefulness of organizing contact sessions as part of course delivery systems in distance education and identified a continuum of three positions:

	zero contact sessions
	supplementary contact sessions; and
	complementary contact sessions.

In a Zero Contact Sessions scenario there is no contact teaching at all. The reasons given are that contact teaching can water down the purity of distance teaching. Furthermore, it is argued that contact teaching may curb the independence of the learner. A Supplementary Contact Sessions scenario is the most common and is based on the premise that face-to-face contact sessions benefit learners. However, due to the complexity of the organization and management of contact sessions, the philosophy of the independence of the learner, and sometimes poor attendance at sessions, these are voluntary. 

Due to the voluntary nature of the sessions, they play a supplementary role and do not teach any new topics, but only revise those that are contained in the materials. Agboola cites various studies that indicate that attendance rates are usually very low at contact sessions when attendance is optional. This, he points out, is at variance with some of the reasons advanced for the need for contact sessions, especially the social function. 

Complementary Contact Sessions are based on a belief that contact sessions form a major part of the delivery strategy in distance education programmes, particularly when it is necessary to demonstrate or practice the skills being taught. In such instances, these sessions may be compulsory. 

In addition to the purely ‘academic’ function, studies have also cited other benefits of contact sessions. A considerable body of research (Bennett & Dunn, 1991) attests to the importance of teacher-learner and learner-learner interactions. In various researches, learners reported that they valued the contact sessions for confidence building and networking. It has also been reported that learners appreciated real time interaction with other people in their studies, particularly with their lecturers/tutors. This desire for interaction was strongest in rural areas (Purnell, et al.) In addition to establishing networks and interacting with other learners, on-campus activities provide learners with physical access to resources such as libraries. 

Non-attendance at tutorials has nonetheless been identified as a problem in distance learning. Hiola and Moss found that the following were the main reasons for non-attendance at the Universitas Terbuka of Indonesia: 

Reasons for missing a tutorial	Percentage indicating this reason
Demands of employment Shortage of time Too far to travel Financial difficulties Family duties Bad time of day Tutorials are for below average students Tutorials are a waste of time	44.1 30.7 30.2 20.1 18.6 15.7   6.8   6.3

The above statistics indicate that the main reasons for missing tutorials are usually domestic and employment pressures on learners rather than because tutors are perceived as being inadequate. 

In the South African context there is the problem of uneven population distribution in rural areas and the difficulties of locating tutorial centres within reasonable travel distances and travel time.

Individual tutorials

In addition to group tutorials, in some institutions, tutors are available for individual consultation with learners. 

According to Bailey (op cit.), one-on-one tutorials or guidance involves various processes which are aimed at assisting learners to become independent and to develop the capacity of effectively managing their own personal, educational and vocational development. Guidance involves seven sub-processes, which are; 

	Informing – providing useful information at a pace that is most suitable for the learner.
	Advising – offering learners suggestions based on the helper’s knowledge or expertise.
	Counseling – offering the individual a relationship based on trust and acceptance within which she or he can  explore issues relevant to development and can carry through decisions
	Coaching – creating or structuring learning experience so that the individual can practice and gain new knowledge, skills or perceptions
	Assessment – gathering and giving information about the individual (abilities, performance, aptitudes, values, interests, and so on
	Advocacy – taking action on behalf of and with the agreement of the individual
	Feedback to systems – providing information to organizations on the experiences or problems of individuals that require changes in the system.

Bailey’s model of guidance is based on the view that individuals have the capacity for personal growth. The perception is that the relationship between the learner and the helper should be on an equal basis, and that individuals should be seen as capable of helping themselves.

Contact sessions organized in the form of group tutorials or individual consultations would seem to offer opportunities to address the needs of learners outlined earlier, viz. academic support, social and personal support and provision of access to resources. However, the way in which these contact sessions are run will have a profound effect on the degree to which the support in these three areas is meaningful. For example, as noted earlier, a group tutorial offered in the form of a mass lecture with limited or no opportunities for questioning and discussion is unlikely to be of much benefit to a learner already struggling to master the printed material. If, as often happens in this scenario, the group are lectured to and then disperse, there is also very little opportunity for socialization and personal support. Many learners find it difficult to approach their lecturers, for various reasons, and traditional classroom teaching experiences indicates that it is sometimes easier for learners to open up and voice their concerns when working in small groups rather than in a mass plenary session. The venues at which contact sessions are held also have profound implications for addressing learners’ needs for access to information and resources. If a contact session is held in a typical South African government school, for example, it is very unlikely that learners will have access there to information technology, additional reading material or to audio and video-cassette playback facilities. 

In a similar way, contact sessions would appear to offer opportunities to address the transactional distance concerns outlined in the discussion of Moore’s writing earlier. Again the degree of effectiveness in addressing these concerns very much depends on just how these sessions are mediated. Moore pointed to the need for dialogue between learners and between learners and teachers. Small group discussions with feedback to a plenary discussion would seem to offer opportunities for this: however, as noted earlier, traditionally, South African teachers have tended to dominate face-to-face contact sessions, with an emphasis on transmission of knowledge to passive learners rather than a conscious effort to engage learners in dialogue and debate. Distance education teachers need to go through the same paradigm shift from seeing themselves as disseminators of information to facilitators of learning just as much as their counterparts in more traditional settings. 

Moore also pointed to the way in which the structure of a programme can increase or decrease the transactional distance between learners and teachers. A programme built around a set programme of contact sessions in certain pre-selected venues has the potential to impose barriers to learning rather than breaking them down as learners have to overcome transport problems, conflicts with other responsibilities and possible disinclinations to learn in a group. It raises concerns about the alternatives offered to learners who are unwilling or unable to attend the contact sessions. 

Finally, Moore directed us to concerns about learner autonomy. This raises questions about the extent to which the learners are free to determine what happens in contact sessions, and even to determine when and where they are held, if they are to be held at all. Given South Africa’s national goal of producing people capable of learning independently on a path of lifelong learning, we need to consider the extent to which contact sessions are designed to increasingly transfer the responsibility for learning to the learner him or herself. It also raises questions about the extent to which as the programme progresses, the emphasis changes from tutor-led, formal contact sessions to other forms of support such as self-initiated peer support, mentoring and even written correspondence.

Peer support

Contact with fellow learners can be an important part of learner support. Holmberg (1984) has confirmed the importance of peer interaction and has argued that learners have a need to share discoveries and intellectual experiences with someone else, to exchange views and through this exchange learn confidently to work with the intellectual matter concerned. 

Peer groups can encourage learners to take responsibility for their own learning and help them to become aware of the active role they can play in knowledge making (Thomson & Inglis, 1993). 

Paul (1990) has argued that: 

One of the biggest problems faced by first-time students in such an environment [i.e. open university] is the absence of peers. While this is a serious academic problem, given the interaction and being exposed to different perspectives on issues, it is even more fundamental a concern in terms of student persistence. 

Furthermore, Fage and Mills (1986) have observed that Open University learners tend to blame themselves for failure rather than the institution or courses when they perform badly. As such it is important to develop the learner’s self-confidence and peers can offer reassurance and support in this regard. 

In relation to learning groups, the 1998/9 SAIDE evaluation of the University of the Witwatersrand Master in Management Programme (MMP) offered for Public and Development Management observed that:  

Approaches in using Learning Groups in distance education (compared to other practices of correspondence, one way TV, the attendance of lectures, etc.) holds many lessons of experience for application by other distance education practitioners. Some specific uses of Learning Groups include;

- Academic preparation/ learning/ organising for lectures

- The use as a social support in times of personal difficulty

- Logistical support e.g. travel arrangements and the distribution of material

- The development of skills to handle conflict in the group, to facilitate relationships

- Motivation (e.g. peer pressure), discipline and the execution of work

- The use of the Learning Group leader, in improving communication with other Learning Groups, class staff

- Learning Groups handle a wide variety of issues such as seminars, workshops, complaints and social events.

 

Learning Groups also have potential for life long learning and individual tutoring as these relationships are often transcended to the work place and beyond the duration of the MMP course.

 

 Mentors

Some institutions include mentoring as an integral part of their learner support system. According to Nessan and Ronan (1997), the role of the mentor is that of facilitating the learning and self-development of a protégé: “Mentoring is viewed as a special relationship that develops between two persons and a mentor is someone who is always there for support but not dependency”.  

From their interviews with mentors, Henderson and Fenwicks’ (1995) perception was that mentoring played a major role in learner support, especially in undergraduate studies. Mentoring can involve social support, career development and role modelling. A mentor can be a caring listener, a critical friend, a trusted counsellor, an accessible guide, a knowledgeable role model, a credible broker, a reflexive teacher and a warm demander. 

Taylor et al also highlight the crucial role played by a mentor who has a special “one-to-one relationship” with the learner. This relationship may be spontaneous in some contexts but they use the term mentor to describe a more formal relationship of support. 

Feedback through assessment

In a distance education programme, a further dimension to learner support is support through feedback on assessment. In distance education, in the absence of face-to-face contact, written feedback should be regarded as a teaching opportunity. Rowntree (?) says about feedback in a distance education context: 

It has to be more considered and articulate because it must carry all the weight of the teaching that other teachers are able to share between written comments and spoken amplification. 

Robinson (1995) argues that one of the factors that correlate positively with low attrition is a short turn around time for giving learners feedback. Because of the limited contact between learner and lecturer or tutor, it becomes important to use assignments not just to grade learners, but as a major form of teaching and providing support. As is pointed out in the Tutor’s Guide prepared by SAIDE (1998): 

You can think of teaching through assignments as a learner-led dialogue between yourself and the individual learner. This dialogue starts with the learner’s work, and continues with your feedback, and their response to your comments.  

Commenting on assignments can be an effective means of providing supportive formative feedback. Not only can such comments serve an important academic function, but they can also motivate and encourage learners. If learners have opportunities to respond to the feedback, then a dialogue has been started which can reduce the sense of ‘distance’. If the feedback is useful and accessible, it should contribute towards the learners increasingly taking responsibility for improving their own learning, a necessary step towards independence and autonomy. This suggests the need for guidelines for tutors on how to use feedback on assignments as a teaching tool. 

4.  What is the medium of the learner support? 

Following international trends, more resource-based learning and distance education institutions in South Africa are moving towards using a combination of media to interact with learners and offer support. According to Bates (1995), the five most important media in education are: direct human contact, text, audio, television and computing. Telephones are also important. 

Thorpe (op cit.) maintains that even where materials of proven high quality are created, many learners still require the flexible and individual attention that only a person can provide in order to achieve the intended learning goals. 

Furthermore, in using the media as a form of communication, institutions should be careful not to make the use of a particular communication medium a requirement for learners who are taking particular courses since this would deny other learners access to the course. Distance educators have to ensure that the communication mediums they select are suitable to the subject and to the learner population as well. Castro (?) also notes that although the use of computers or direct satellite may be helpful in reaching a wider audience of learners who might have no other way of participating, this may also deter learners who do not feel confident about the use of such mediums. 

Doring (1994) argues that if educational technology is used uncritically as a form of learner support it can unwittingly create a new form of disadvantaged student. 

Unfortunately, while developments in audio, video and computer applications may provide the means to enrich learning experiences, such changes in delivery often have negative implications. Issues of access, lack of knowledge of how to use the technology and not being comfortable with the technology can contribute to certain learners not being able to take full or any advantage of learner support that is delivered via technology. 

It is ironic that in a climate of diminishing resources, institutions are forced to cut costs and are often led to believe that technology is the way to create cost-effective education. However, as Doring (ibid) observes, often technical systems are expensive and not usually cost-effective for individuals to access, providers to establish multiple sites, or economically viable for rural and remote areas. As such, if technology is seen as the solution to learner support, these geographical and financial constraints may develop into educational deprivation. 

5.  Who are the support staff and what are their functions? 

In order for a learner support system to be effective, institutions need competent and adequately qualified staff to be employed at all levels. Often learner support activities have been relegated to a low status and as such, people involved in support may be new and relatively inexperienced. If learner support is to be effective, there is a need to provide on going training and support to academic and administrative staff involved in offering the support needed by learners. 

A debate that highlights the complexity of who should offer support is that of the question around the ‘tutor-counselor’. The literature reports that tutors often perform the dual task of tutor and counselor. While some have argued that non-academic problems are best dealt with by professionally trained counseling staff, there are also those who argue that tutors are in the best position to offer counseling since they know the learners, their circumstances and their performance (Thorpe, 1988). 

King (1994) notes that it may not be wise to have support services that are run by a single source. This is based on the realization that learners may face varying problems at varying points in their academic lives, which may not be handled adequately by a single person. “For example it may be difficult for learners to seek support about overcoming study difficulties from someone who has a role in their ultimate assessment.”  

King notes that support can be demanding since it requires a range of expertise. For instance he points out that the quality of staff becomes a problem when the scope of courses is increased in terms of subjects covered and the levels at which those subjects are taught. He notes subject competence as one of the crucial resources in providing support. Other equally important aspects of providing support include counselling and study skills, technical competence, and being available for learners. He argues that: 

…the most useful support will follow from a capacity to bring together detailed knowledge of the educational institution, its systems and procedures, the structure and components of its courses of study, with a similar level of understanding of the individual student concerned. 

King notes that the best support can be achieved through combining a wide range of measures. 

The primary responsibility of the support people, according to Inglis (1997), is that they should be available. She says that:

The role of the support person is to be available to assist the learner in the way the learner decides and the support person agrees. The support person is not there to teach the content but may be available to discuss issues of concern, and encourage and facilitate thinking. 

Kember (1989) also points to the importance of the quality and quantity of personal contact with lecturers/tutors. 

6.  Where does the support take place? 

There is debate about whether contact sessions should take learners out of their homes. The Indira Gandhi National Open University has achieved the most success in Indian distance programmes in taking education to women by adopting the camp approach. Women were taken out of their homes to a 2-3 week residential camp where learning was faster when not distracted by household responsibilities and the women in this case preferred to be out of the home context to pursue their learning (Chawla, ?). 

It is, however, often expensive for learners to travel to the venue where support may take place and some institutions are investigating models where ‘roving’ tutors offer support at the place where learners live and work. 

In the Adult Basic Education and Training Course offered by the ABET Institute at UNISA (Case Study 2 in this report), learners are responsible for organizing their own venues, which are usually located within easy reach of most of the learners in a particular area. 

7.  What quality assurance and monitoring and evaluation mechansisms exist? 

Both Thorpe (1996) and Fage and Mayes (op cit.) point to the importance of quality assurance and monitoring of learner support services. Kamper (1992) expresses a concern that “Distance education institutions are investing large amounts of money and time in student support activities, but seemingly without comparable concern for the quality of the support services in terms of student development, progress and satisfaction”. Added to this is on-going staff development and training. Constant monitoring and evaluation is necessary to ensure that learner support services are operating effectively, to identify gaps in the system and to see how the system could be improved.  

1.6.8 Are the communication, information and administrative systems responsive enough to support and maintain the learner support system? 

It is important for distance education institutions to have efficient communication, information and administrative systems, which are responsive to individual learner needs. For example if feedback on assignments is a key part of learner support but there are no mechanisms for ensuring that learners get assignments back timeously, then the effectiveness of the support may be lost. Academic staff should make an input in the design of communication, information and administrative systems so that they contain all the elements required to make them relevant. All staff need training in the use of such systems to ensure that adequate information is collected on which to base decisions about learner support, that information is shared timeously with learners and staff who support learners, and that mechanisms are in place which make it easy for learners to interact with staff and vice versa. 

8.  Who bears the cost of learner support? 

The research presented here does not attempt to analyse the cost of learner support in detail, but it will look at some of the implications of opting for different combinations of learner support services.

Budgeting to cover the costs of a learner support system needs to be carefully worked out. Haasbroek (1995) argues that in order to avoid any downgrading of support services, meticulous cost estimation and financial management must be carried out. Many institutions, however, do not keep accurate records of the cost of learner support. 

Sewart (1992) argues that a tension in managing and costing distance education programmes is that the core activity, materials production, runs on the principles of the manufacturing industry but the learner support system must run on the principles of a service industry. Funding is made difficult because within the limited financial constraints faced by most institutions, when funding is needed for activities such as materials production, this is often taken from funds earmarked for learner support.  Sewart suggests that one reason for taking money from learner support is that the utilisation and impact of learner support is not as tangible as course materials, which are seen as the distinguishing feature and core of a distance education course. 

However, he reminds us “… the product of all education, including distance education is, in fact, the students. The organisation, as a service industry, is relating the tangible product (course materials) to its customers. The objective of an institution is not the production of highly acclaimed course materials; it is the production of successful students.” 

Given that effective learner support is likely to lower the drop out rate and increase the pass rate, it would seem logical that institutions should allocate more of their finances to this area. However, Paul (1998) points out that this is often not the case. One possible reason for this, he suggests, is that a principle argument in favour of distance education institutions is their relative cost efficiency in providing access to disadvantaged communities. It is therefore not surprising that learner support services, which often involve costly face-to-face sessions, are not seen as cost-effective. In the face of fiscal constraints, more institutions are therefore cutting back on learner support services. 

However, as Paul argues, in the long term offering learner support should increase learner success rates and therefore negate the argument that they are not cost-effective. His argument implies a need to reconsider how programmes are evaluated in cost terms: should a programme be evaluated in terms of the cost per learner currently on the programme or the cost per successful graduate of the programme?  Furthermore, by accepting learners, the institution is taking on a commitment to invest in the success of these learners. Although this may be viewed as costly, it would be more wasteful, in both financial and human terms, to let learners fail. 

To draw the above discussion together, it is helpful to refer back to the general observations made by other researchers based upon their own detailed analysis of learner support theory and practice. Sweet (1993) concludes his introduction to the COL case studies with the following useful observations: 

	Distance education institutions are moving away from the traditional industrial model of design,                 development and delivery of learning packages towards a model more concerned with the way                              students both interact and come to understand the idea studied.
	This approach is based on an altered concept of the learner, who is seen to engage the ideas in a                    field of study and make sense of this knowledge in a personally meaningful way.
	Instructional design increasingly includes interaction as a defining characteristic of distance learning                   and not as a supplemental attribute of the system.
	The roles of advisor and tutor need to merge. The primary responsibility of the resulting academic                        counselor is to pursue a learner-centred approach to instruction.
	Cooperative goal structures can facilitate the development of effective learning strategies. Collaboration                 is  possible in both mediated and face-to-face settings but its successful conduct requires that                        significant changes be made to current instructional design and implementation practices. The roles                 and responsibilities of both student and academic counselor must reflect these changes.

The above recommendations seem as pertinent today in South Africa as when they were first published. Robinson (in Lockwood, 1995) found that: 

	Learner-institution contact, such as regular contact with support staff, appears to have a positive                     effect on performance and persistence rates;
	Factors which correlate positively with course completion rates include the use of course assignments,                  early submission of the first one, short turn-round times for giving learners feedback, pacing of progress, supplementary audio-tapes or telephone tutorials, favourable working conditions in the learner’s context,              the quality of learning materials and reminders from tutors to complete work;
	Multiple interacting factors (personal, environmental and course variables) are at work in determining                learner success; some institutional interventions can assist if appropriately targeted;
	Learners value contact with support staff and other learners, though do not always use the services                  provided; learners most often report a preference for face-to-face tutoring compared to other media,                  though where face-to-face meetings are not possible, other forms of contact are rated as acceptable                   or valuable;
	What happens in the early stages of recruitment and enrolment affects later success or failure;
	Personal circumstances and lack of time are the most common reasons given for withdrawal from study.”

In addition, it is helpful to reflect upon the requirements outlined by Kember (1995) for an effective model for learner progress:

	Ownership by learners of the tutored study group
	Use of course materials which actively discourage rote learning
	Ongoing assessment strategy which encourages an integration between theory and practice
	Support for learners by enthusiastic and committed part-time tutors
	Support for tutors by a committed full-time coordinator
	Effective administrative support.

 We hope that this brief overview of the literature on learner support will offer you a useful perspective from which to engage with the case studies in Part 2.