Penelitian Mahasiswa Suskes di UT

Diambil dari draft Introduction
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From the system view perspective, Moore and Kearsley (2012), illustrate that distance education system with its elements such as organization, policy, management, teaching, learning, program/course design and technology, basically resting on the larger system that they call as ‘parent’ or national educational system where culture, philosophy, history, economy, psychology, and sociology play their roles. Among the existing distance education institutions in many countries today, however, there is a common characteristic of distance education system which could be referred to Renee Erdos’model in Holmberg (1995, p.30) which consists of four sub-systems, i.e., courses, students, management, and logistic.

One way of looking at Erdos’ model as distance education system is from input, process, and output perspectives. From external distance education stakeholders’ point of view and without simplifying the essence of education itself in distance education practices, the output and the reputation of distance education institution in Erdos’ model could be seen in term of both the number the completers (graduates) and non-completers (dropouts).

The mathematical relationship between completers and non-completers in education is inversely which means the bigger number of the graduates of a student cohort means the smaller number of the non-completers or dropouts and vice versa. The big numbers of completers, from the external stakeholder`s point of view, can be interpreted as the success of a distance education institution. Unfortunately, the number of non-completers rate in many distance education institutions is very high. Most of the time,  this is actually an important issue that usually avoided by the management to be exposed explicitly and widely in public domain even though it is the critical factor for the institution`s accountability.

The number of non-completers is the most significant problem in any educational institution because it is one of the most tangible educational goal achievement measurements for all the stakeholders (such parents, students, teachers, and administrators) who involve in educational system.  According to Kuh, G. D Kinzie, J., Schuh, J.H., Whitt, E.J., & Associates (2010), the real challenge .of educational institution is to help the students to achieve their educational goals, meaning to complete the programs, because for decades the college completer’s rate has hovered around 50%.  This is the problem that I address in my research. It is my interest to address the distance learner non-completers as my the points of departure in this research even though my intention or my point of arrival will emphasize on the effort of exploring why some of the distance learners are successful or survive becoming the completers in distance education system.