Satisfaction and Performance of Academic Counsellors in an Online Training Programme — A Study

Abstract

The study makes an attempt to analyse the level of satisfaction and performance of academic counsellors of various distance learning institutes in India in an online training programme i.e. Academic Counsellor Training Online — ACT-Online developed by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The training programme is designed specifically for those who are engaged in tutoring and counselling services, evaluation, and providing other support to distance
learners. The contents of the ACT-Online are hyperlinked properly, which include text materials, Power Point presentations, video clips, etc. The online training environment includes interaction, individual and group activities, online discussion board, collaboration, and so on. The main objective of the study was to assess the relation between the level of satisfaction and performance of the academic counsellors. A total of 722 authentic trainees, activated by providing user id and
password for the training took part in this study. Two questionnaires were developed to examine the performance and satisfaction levels. The questionnaires were administered online. The trainees have shown significant improvement in their post training assessment scores. Female trainees have shown significantly greater improvement in scores than the male trainees. A majority of ACT-Online trainees were satisfied with the information on the ACT-Online website, regular interaction between the facilitator and trainees, regular interaction among the trainees, e-content available on online training portal, support material
including video and Power Point presentations and content of the response/feedback received from the facilitators.

To study the relation between the level of satisfaction and improvement in performances four sub-groups were identified based on the level of improvement of performances shown after the training (as revealed by the improved scores). The sub-group with lowest improvement in scores displayed the lowest satisfaction rate, whilst, the sub-group with the highest improvement in scores showed the highest level of satisfaction. The results showed that the improvement in performance was positively related to the overall satisfaction level of the trainees of the ACTOnline training programme.