QUALITY OF RESEARCH IN DISTANCE EDUCATION: AN ANALYSIS OF ATTITUDE AND FACILITIES PROVIDED AT HIGHER

Abstract

Research was based on five objectives. The major purpose of the research was to assess the impact of student’s attitude and facilities on quality of research in distance education system. Further the research was focused on comparison of student’s attitude, provision of facilities and quality of research in public and private sector distance education institutions. The research was based on descriptive- co relational style. All the higher level distance education institutions of Islamabad were considered as the population of the research. The researcher used the disproportionate stratified sampling technique to draw the sample for the study. 66 teachers contributed in the data collection process among which 30 were from public and 36 were from private sector. The study was delimited to the two distance education universities of Islamabad for the ease of the researcher. The researcher used a self developed questionnaire for the purpose of data collection. The tool was based on three major parts that were attitude assessment, facilities provision assessment and research quality assessment. The data revealed that attitude of the students was having 8.5% (p <0.01) effect on the quality of research while the provision of the facilities was having 39% (p <0.01) effect on the quality of research. However there was no statistically significant difference found between public and private sector universities with reference to the attitude of students, provision of facilities and quality of research. Thus it was recommended that the latest electronic facilities related to the media access through internet and web integration may be provided to the students in order to get maximum benefit. There is also a need to develop a serious attitude of the students towards the research activities. The research findings may also be applied in the practical situation to encourage the real creativity of the researcher.