Factors Affecting Students’ Satisfaction and Academic Performance in Open & Distance Learning (ODL)

Abstract

The worldwide education systems are crippled, inevitably leading to the near-total closure of school establishments, early childhood educations, colleges as well as universities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As of May 2021, approximately 1.2 billion students from all over the world were affected. As a result, education essentials dramatically adjust with the distinctive rise of e-learning tools, wherein teaching is now undertaken remotely on digital platforms. Realizing the grave current situation and the importance of education, this study aims to understand the factors affecting student satisfaction; the effect of student satisfaction; and perceived performance with academic performance in an open and distance learning (ODL) environment. The data were collected from 239 respondents via online surveys, which comprises accounting students in the UiTM Perak branch, Tapah campus. The analysis of the findings shows that the course design is the main factor that affected student satisfaction in ODL. In terms of academic performance, the findings revealed that only perceived performance had a positive influence, whereas student satisfaction had no effect.