The importance of a student profile in an accountable open learning student counselling model

[摘要] Student support and the counselling of open and distance learners is an area of potentialgrowth. It attempts to emphasise that each individual student should be recognised as a humanbeing, by drawing attention to the multiplicity of factors which impinge on the academicsuccess of the student. It is argued that in distance learning counselling this can only beachieved by the construction of student profiles.The study explores current practices and shortcomings before the dissertation demonstrates theessential information required by the counsellor in providing counselling to a student removedin space and time by means of a detailed report on longitudinal qualitative and quantitativeresearch.The dissertation also presents some existing models and explores common factors, andindicates current shortcomings in counselling practice. A combination of all the informationgathered, provides the researcher with insights to identify the specific elements of a newmodel. The model then presented as an outcome of this study is constructed in such a waythat it contains all the structural elements while simultaneously representing the dynamic,adaptable nature required by this complex situation. The dissertation concludes that theadoption and application of such a model will have far reaching implications for distancelearning institutions and provides a number of recommendations for such implementation.

[发布机构] University of the Free State