Attached
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of peripheral services offered by distance
education (DE) institutes on student involvement in DE and, examine whether this impact is mediated by
student experience quality.
Designlmethodology/approach - Quantitative research approach based on cross-sectional survey
design was used where data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Sample consisted of
400 undergraduates of the Open University of Sri Lanka, drawn using simple random sampling technique.
Collected data were analyzed using the structural equation model.
Findings - Data analysis revealed that there is a significant direct impact of peripheral services offered by
DE institutes on student involvement in the Sri Lankan context. Furthermore, it is validated that this impact
is mediated by student experience quality.
Research limitations/implications - Focus of the study is only on the impact of contextual elements
rather than personal or demographic factors of students which can have an important impact on their
experience quality as well as involvement.
Practical implications - Findings are useful in designing and redesigning service offering and policy
development by DE institutes to make their services more appealing.
Originality/value - Even though previous studies have identified student dropout and lower academic
excellence as issues in DE, how service offering can be used to overcome them via student involvement has
not received considerable attention. Hence, the tested conceptual model developed on multiple theories is a
novel contribution to the existing knowledge base.
