Paper Title
Learner Identified Critical Success Factors In Blended Learning: A Sri Lankan Perspectives
Abstract
There is a higher demand for lifelong learning in Sri Lanka currently due to rapid social changes taking place in the country. Everyone is attempting to re-skill their abilities to face the challenges that people face in day to day life. Therefore, many are interested to improve knowledge and skills through higher education. Many higher education institutions are offering blended mode courses in different subjects since 2009. Support services for the self learners are given in each institution. The problem affected to conduct the study was no study was conducted so far to find whether blended learners are getting satisfied support services on time to continue their studies. Further, most important success factors on support services in their learning and their level of satisfaction were also not identified. Therefore, purpose of the study was to identify important Critical Success Factors for blended learning. 287 distance learners were selected for the study from four universities who were registered for the blended learning programmes. The main research tool was a questionnaire. The findings through institutional wise analysis state that learner motivation, provision of online materials, facility to use technology as most important critical success factors of all four universities. Orientation, interactivity, library support, student assessment, quality course materials, administration support were the other critical success factors highlighted by the blended learners.
Key words - Blended learning, Learner support, Critical success factors, Sri Lanka