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is ance education encourages lifelong learning especially for those who have inner quest for higher
education yet have missed the opportunity due to one or more reasons. Despite the popularity and
demand, the system has been suffering from inherent and critical issues as higher student dropout
rate, longer completion time of study programmes by students and comparatively low academic
performance. Even though suggestions to overcome these issues by previous studies focus on
services offered by distant education institutes, they alone cannot overcome them as It requires
students to involve in academic matters since in distance education system, self-responsibility towards
academic activities is crucial. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of support services on
student involvement in distance education in Sri Lanka and, examines whether this impact is mediated
by student experience quality. For this purpose, quantitative research approach based on crosssectional survey design was used. 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. Data which were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling revealed that there
is a direct impact of support services on student involvement. Mediating effect was substantiated
where it partially mediates the impact of support services on student involvement. The validated model
after data analysis is a novel model unique to the distance education. Further, findings facilitate in
service designing process and thereby enable to address the prevailing issues in the distance
education context. Thus, the study is enriched with number of implications in terms of theoretical,
managerial and societal.
