Appraisal of Managerial Roles of Study Centre Coordinators of College of Distance Education, University of Cape Coast

Abstract

The study assessed how students and course tutors on distance education programmes of the College of DistanceEducation, University of Cape Coast appraised their study centre coordinators’ performance in terms of humanrelations, behaviour, organising teaching and learning facilities; and handling complaints. This type of appraisal,where students and tutors representing customers and subordinates respectively, is usually referred to as the360-feedback method in human resource management. Concurrent embedded study design from the pragmatists’epistemic approach was adopted for the study. Simple random and purposive sampling technique were respectivelyused to sample 1228 final year students and 217 course tutors from 53 study centres; and five coordinators from eachof the three Zones across the ten regions of Ghana for triangulation purposes. Data was analysed with descriptivestatistics, independent t-test and a one-way between-groups analysis of variance. The study found that coordinators’behavior and human relations were rated higher as compared to complaints handling and organising study centreactivities. This was blamed on lack of capacity to address most of students and tutors challenges; and teaching loadof coordinators. It was recommended that the management of College of Distance Education should increase thecapacity of coordinators for district and regional study centres as well as the Zones in terms of resources andtechnology to be able to take immediate steps to solve students and tutors’ complaints.