Challenges faced by part-time students in distance education: a case study in UiTM Campus Samarahan 2 / Catherine Selinggau and Suzan Jusipin

This study attempts to study the perceptions of part-time students towards the challenges in distance education. Due to the rapid growth of technology, distance education is getting more popular especially to the adult learners who choose distance learning program to enhance their knowledge and skills without quitting their job. Our study focus on the challenges in distance education since the students may have difficulty to balancing their time between work, study and other responsibilities. We want to find out the motivation level between genders of the part-time students and look at the perceptions towards the financial burden and individual’s situational barriers in distance education. We conducted this research at University Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak Samarahan 2, and selected the part- time students which are from the Bachelor of Administrative Science (Honors) to become our respondents in this study. Results show that gender has no significant different in motivation level. Our analysis also shown that part-time students have moderate perception towards the financial burden in distance education and positive perception on the individual’s situational barriers in distance education. Based on the findings, this study hope to provide insight to the institutions to concern on the challenges faced by part-time students in distance education.