Problems encountered by BA Cur graduates and recommendations for enhancing learner support

Distance education is becoming ever more important in providing continuing post basic, and especially postgradu­ ate, education to practising professional persons, includ­ ing nurses. As more and more institutions in the Repub­ lic of South Africa offer distance education courses to nurses, it is essential to take note of the positive and nega­ tive experiences of successful graduates of these pro­ grammes, in order to enhance the learning opportunities, and the success rate of nurses pursuing such distance edu­ cation courses. A brief historical overview is provided about the Univer­ sity of South Africa (Unisa) and about the Department of Advanced Nursing Sciences at this distance education uni­ versity. This background information should assist the reader in contextualising the research findings. Questionnaires were posted to all Unisa’s 1998 BA Cur graduates. The research report focuses on the 1998 BA Cur (nursing) graduates’ biographic data, their experi­ ences of pursuing distance education post basic nursing courses, their positive and negative perceptions of these experiences and their recommendations for enhancing other students’ success. A b b re via tio n s used in the repo rt PHC Primary Health Care RSA Republic of South Africa SANC South African Nursing Council UK United Kingdom Unisa University of South Africa USA -United States of America Background information about the University of South Africa In order to understand the graduates’ positive and negative experiences related to their distance education ventures, brief historical background information about the University of South Africa (Unisa) and about Unisa’s Department of Ad­ vanced Nursing Sciences will be provided. Students follow­ ing distance education courses at other universities could en­ counter similar and/or different experiences depending on the type(s) of distance education courses offered. The University of the Cape of Good Hope was established as an examining university in 1873, changing its name to the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1916. Since 1946 the major function of Unisa changed from being an examining university to one offering underand postgraduate courses by means of distance education, using an integrated learner sup­ port system including printed study guides and tutorial let­ ters, counselling services, video and teleconferencing, e-mail and Internet access to all the university’s services (including library services and on-line registrations) and to individual lecturers. These distance education services are rendered from Unisa’s main campus in Pretoria as well as from a number of regional offices in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and in a number of African countries. Unisa does have the opera­ tional infrastructure in place to offer distance education courses worldwide, because students write their examinations at more than 450 examination centres throughout the world. The 1998 student population (totalling 117 046) comprised: • 109 997 from the RSA • 4 717 from the rest of Africa 2 332 from the rest o f the world (including North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand). During 1998 Unisa conferred 1 489 diplomas, 10 797 Bach­ elor’s degrees, 446 M aster’s degrees and 87 Doctorates (Unisa 1999d). The departm ent of advanced nursing sciences, U N IS A The Department of Advanced Nursing Sciences, Unisa (hence­ forth referred to as the Department) was established during 1975, admitting its first distance education students during 1976 and boasting its first graduates during April 1979. Dis­ tance education has been broadly defined as a strategy in which the teacher or institution providing instruction is separated either in time, place, or both, from the learners or students (Moore 1987). This definition applies to the courses offered by the Department because all its courses are offered to stu­ dents who do not attend full time university lectures. Even attending the group discussion and video conferences are optional. 28 C u ra tio n is Decem ber 200 0 This Department offers distance education degree and di­ ploma courses to registered nurses, enabling them to acquire additional qualifications with the South African Nursing Council (SANC), depending on their choice of subjects as: • Nurse Educators and/or • Community Health Nurses and/or • Nurse Administrators. The Departm ent also offers M aster’s and Doctoral pro­ grammes by means of distance education. The number of students who obtained qualifications until 1998, according to Unisa’ Bureau for Management Information, (Unisa 1999a) were: • Diplomas in Advanced Nursing Sciences: 1118 • BA Cur degrees: 7 391 • Honours BA Cur degrees: 913 • MA Cur: 69 • D Litt et Phil: 25 The Department’s study materials consist of study guides ex­ plaining the course content and the structure of a specific course, and tutorial letters containing assignments which stu­ dents need to do in order to gain examination admission. Students need to buy their own prescribed books, but can ob­ tain recommended literature from the Unisa library. Lectur­ ers provide written comments about the essay type assign­ ments to individual students and comments about assign­ ments comprising objective item questions. Group discus­ sions are held in Pretoria and at the regional offices at spe­ cific times of the year, supplemented by video conferences. Students can contact the lecturers by telephone, postal corre­ spondence, e-mail, and the Internet. These support systems attempt to provide tutorial support when required by students, an essential element determining the success of distance edu­ cation programmes (Clark in Price 1997:154). The need for providing distance education courses to regis­ tered nurses in the RSA and in the rest of Africa exists be­ cause large numbers of registered nurses cannot leave their jobs and families to attend full time courses in large cities and/or in foreign countries. This situation is not unique to Africa, but has also been reported in the United States of America (USA) by Johnston and Lewis (1995:237): Regis­ tered nurses seeking advanced degrees ...fo r career advance­ ment frequently encounter difficulty in finding an accessible program ... to f i t with fam ily and employment obligations, prevent nurses from growing in their profession. Reinert and Fryback (1997:42) reported that they identified 135 nursing schools offering off-site courses in the USA. Distance education courses also become increasingly impor­ tant to provide opportunities for nurses to enhance their quali­ fications in the United Kingdom (UK) as a result of organisa­ tional and economic reforms in the British health care sys­ tem (Price 1997:154). The Research Project An exploratory descriptive quantitative survey was used in an attempt to identify possible problems encountered by BA Cur graduates and to obtain their suggestions for enhancing learner support systems for future students. Purpose of the research In order to enhance the value of distance education courses to the students, ongoing research should strive to identify strengths and weaknesses of such courses. Such information should not only be obtained from registered students pursu­ ing such courses but also from successful candidates. Ob­ taining information from the latter group would be more dif­ ficult because they might no longer be registered students and their addresses could have changed since they were last reg­ istered at Unisa. It was considered essential to conduct re­ search among successful BA Cur graduates to identify ways in which the Department could enhance its learner support to students. This would be in line with the RSA’s National Com­ mission on Higher Education’s standpoint that: A key chal­ lenge fo r higher education is to enhance the quality of higher education programmes and to improve success and through­ put rates (Unisa 1999b:5). The Vice-Chancellour of Unisa proclaimed th a t... one o f the most significant distance education challenges facing Africa in general, and Unisa in particular, is providing sustainable and effective student support which is properly integrated into the distance education delivery system (Unisa 1999c). This survey attempted to identify ways in which learner sup­ port could be enhanced from the students’ points of view. This research report focussed only on students who completed the BA Cur degree requirements and graduated during 1998. The purposes of conducting this survey were to: • gain biographic data about the graduates • obtain factual data about the duration of their studies • identify positive and negative experiences which these students encountered • identify possible ways of enhancing student support. The research population and sample The D epartm ent of Com puter Services, Unisa, provided printed name and address labels of all students who fulfilled the requirements for the BA Cur degree at the end of 1997. This limited the research population only to those 227 stu­ dents who passed all the subjects required for the BA Cur degree, and who met all the laboratory or practical work requirements by December 1997. Sixty-six completed ques­ tionnaires were returned, forming the research sample (n = 6 6 ) for this research report. Research instrum ent A structured questionnaire containing mostly closed ended questions but also a number of open ended questions was used because it was the only way in which the 227 BA Cur gradu­ ates could be reached who lived throughout the RSA and in a number of African countries. The items (questions), included in the questionnaire were selected after careful perusal of reports about distance educa­ tion students’ experiences. The compiled questionnaires were submitted to distance education lecturers for their comments. A few items were rephrased, and more questions were in­ cluded attempting to obtain more biographic data from the respondents. Pretesting of the questionnaire Pretesting is a smal


Background information about the University of South Africa
In order to understand the graduates' positive and negative experiences related to their distance education ventures, brief historical background inform ation about the U niversity of South Africa (Unisa) and about U nisa's Department of Ad vanced Nursing Sciences will be provided.Students follow ing distance education courses at other universities could en counter similar and/or different experiences depending on the type(s) of distance education courses offered.
The University o f the Cape of Good Hope was established as an examining university in 1873, changing its name to the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1916.Since 1946 the major function o f Unisa changed from being an examining university to one offering under-and postgraduate courses by means of distance education, using an integrated learner sup port system including printed study guides and tutorial let ters, counselling services, video and teleconferencing, e-mail and Internet access to all the university's services (including library services and on-line registrations) and to individual lecturers.These distance education services are rendered from U nisa's main campus in Pretoria as well as from a number of regional offices in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and in a number of African countries.Unisa does have the opera tional infrastructure in place to offer distance education courses worldwide, because students write their examinations at more than 450 examination centres throughout the world.The 1998 student population (totalling 117 046) comprised: • 109 997 from the RSA • 4 717 from the rest of Africa 2 332 from the rest o f the world (includin North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand).During 1998 Unisa conferred 1 489 diplomas, 10 797 Bach elor's degrees, 446 M aster's degrees and 87 Doctorates (Unisa 1999d).

The departm ent of advanced nursing sciences, U NISA
The Department o f Advanced Nursing Sciences, Unisa (hence forth referred to as the Department) was established during 1975, admitting its first distance education students during 1976 and boasting its first graduates during April 1979.Dis tance education has been broadly defined as a strategy in which the teacher or institution providing instruction is separated either in time, place, or both, from the learners or students (M oore 1987).This definition applies to the courses offered by the Department because all its courses are offered to stu dents who do not attend full time university lectures.Even attending the group discussion and video conferences are optional.
This Department offers distance education degree and di ploma courses to registered nurses, enabling them to acquire additional qualifications with the South A frican Nursing Council (SANC), depending on their choice of subjects as: The D epartm ent's study materials consist o f study guides ex plaining the course content and the structure of a specific course, and tutorial letters containing assignments which stu dents need to do in order to gain exam ination admission.
Students need to buy their own prescribed books, but can ob tain recommended literature from the Unisa library.Lectur ers provide written comments about the essay type assign ments to individual students and com m ents about assign ments comprising objective item questions.Group discus sions are held in Pretoria and at the regional offices at spe cific times o f the year, supplemented by video conferences.
Students can contact the lecturers by telephone, postal corre spondence, e-mail, and the Internet.These support systems attempt to provide tutorial support when required by students, an essential element determ ining the success o f distance edu cation programmes (Clark in Price 1997:154).
The need for providing distance education courses to regis tered nurses in the RSA and in the rest o f Africa exists be cause large numbers o f registered nurses cannot leave their jobs and families to attend full time courses in large cities and/or in foreign countries.This situation is not unique to Africa, but has also been reported in the United States of America (USA) by Johnston and Lewis (1995:237): Regis tered nurses seeking advanced degrees ...fo r career advance ment frequently encounter difficulty in finding an accessible program ... to f i t with fa m ily and em ploym ent obligations, prevent nurses from growing in their profession.Reinert and Fryback (1997:42) reported that they identified 135 nursing schools offering off-site courses in the USA.Distance education courses also become increasingly im por tant to provide opportunities for nurses to enhance their quali fications in the United Kingdom (UK) as a result of organisa tional and economic reforms in the British health care sys tem (Price 1997:154).

The Research Project
An exploratory descriptive quantitative survey was used in an attempt to identify possible problems encountered by BA Cur graduates and to obtain their suggestions for enhancing learner support systems for future students.

Purpose of the research
In order to enhance the value of distance education courses to the students, ongoing research should strive to identify strengths and weaknesses of such courses.Such information should not only be obtained from registered students pursu ing such courses but also from successful candidates.Ob taining information from the latter group would be more dif ficult because they might no longer be registered students and their addresses could have changed since they were last reg istered at Unisa.It was considered essential to conduct re search among successful BA Cur graduates to identify ways in which the Department could enhance its learner support to students.This would be in line with the RSA's National Com mission on Higher Education's standpoint that: A key chal lenge fo r higher education is to enhance the quality of higher education programmes and to improve success and through put rates (Unisa 1999b:5).

The research population and sample
The D epartm ent o f C om puter Services, U nisa, provided printed name and address labels of all students who fulfilled the requirements for the BA Cur degree at the end of 1997.This limited the research population only to those 227 stu dents who passed all the subjects required for the BA Cur degree, and who met all the laboratory or practical work requirements by December 1997.Sixty-six completed ques tionnaires were returned, forming the research sample (n = 6 6 ) for this research report.

Research instrument
A structured questionnaire containing mostly closed ended questions but also a number of open ended questions was used because it was the only way in which the 227 BA Cur gradu ates could be reached who lived throughout the RSA and in a number o f African countries.
The items (questions), included in the questionnaire were selected after careful perusal of reports about distance educa tion students' experiences.The compiled questionnaires were submitted to distance education lecturers for their comments.
A few items were rephrased, and more questions were in cluded attempting to obtain more biographic data from the respondents.

Pretesting of the questionnaire
Pretesting is a small scale study using a small sample, which will be excluded from the subsequent research sample, to provide a miniature trial run of the research instrument and process.The purpose of a pretest is to enable the researcher to refine or adjust the research instrum ent and/or process should that be necessary prior to em barking on the actual data gathering process (Armstrong & Grace 1994:78).
Pretesting the questionnaires on a sample o f the 1998 BA Cur graduates proved to be problematic as it could not be ascertained who could be reached at which addresses and how to exclude those participating in the pretests from the subse quent survey.Consequently, ten students pursuing Nursing Education III courses at Unisa during 1997, who could not graduate during 1998 and who were thus excluded from the research population of 1998 BA Cur graduates, were requested to complete questionnaires in an attem pt to pretest the instru ment.More open-ended questions were added as a result of these ten students' comments.No items were perceived to be ambiguous.The questionnaire could be com pleted within thirty minutes.Thus the questionnaire could be accepted as a research instrument for this survey.

Reliability and validity of the research instrum ent
The reliability of a research instrument can be regarded as its stability, consistency or dependability as a an instrument m eas uring certain attributes."The reliability o f an instrument is the degree of consistency with which it measures the attribute it is suppposed to be m easuring" (Polit & Hungler 1989:242).The items included in the questionnaire were based on an indepth literature review about distance education programmes and students, as well as on suggestions from distance educa tion lecturers and from students pursuing distance education programmes.Consequently, the instrument was accepted as measuring students perceptions about their experiences while pursuing distance education programmes.
Validity refers to the degree to which an instrument measures what it is supposed to measure (Polit & Hungler 1989:246).
Content validity, concerning the adequacy of the content be ing covered by the questions, was assessed by requesting the evaluations of both lecturers involved with distance educa tion courses, and third year Nursing Education students who were pursuing distance education programm es at least for the third successive year.

Ethical considerations
The target population for this study com prised 1998 BA Cur graduates, who were no longer registered BA Cur students, and who could therefore reflect their perceptions about their distance education programmes without fear o f intimidation.The questionnaires were completely anonymous and no re spondent could be traced as the questionnaires were not num bered.As the questionnaires were completely anonymous, the respondents were assured of confidentiality o f their individual responses.The respondents who returned completed ques tionnaires to the researcher did so freely, without coercion and without remuneration.

The data gathering process
During January 1998, 227 questionnaires were posted to all the BA Cur graduates identified by U nisa's Department of Com puter Services.Self-addressed, stamped envelopes were included for returning the com pleted questionnaires.Stu dents were requested to return the completed questionnaires before the end of February 1998.Only 6 6 (29.07%) usable questionnaires were returned by the end of 1998.Approxi mately 67 (29.52%) questionnaires were returned with "ad dress unknown" stamps on the envelopes.It could be as sumed that these graduates might have acquired new profes sional positions inside the RSA or in foreign countries, mak ing it problematic to trace them.Another 34 (14.98%)ques tionnaires which were returned, could not be used because they were answered incompletely as the respondents m isun derstood the questionnaires to be directed at students regis tered for the BA Cur degree during 1997 -which excluded them from participating in this survey according to this per ception, as they had completed their BA Cur studies and were no longer registered for this course.
No codes were used on the questionnaires, in an effort to en sure absolute anonymity in order to obtain truthful answers, thus the non-respondents could not be identified.The cost of sending reminders and second questionnaires to the 227 gradu ates would have been prohibitive, and the expected increased number of questionnaires returned appeared to be negligible.Consequently, it was decided to use the available data to iden tify the possible strengths and weaknesses of the distance edu cation BA Cur degree course, as experienced by the 6 6 suc cessful 1998 BA Cur graduates (in future referred to as re spondents) who completed and returned their questionnaires.
The report was compiled to present overviews of the gradu ates' biographic data, their perceptions about their BA Cur studies, and their perceptions about the nursing courses they followed.

Data Analysis
As this research was conducted as an exploratory, quantita tive survey and as no hypotheses were formulated, the re sponses from the 6 6 usable questionnaires were tallied, per centages calculated, and frequency displayed as tables where necessary.In this way the raw data from the questionnaires were summarised, organised and systematised and commu nicated to the readers of the report (Polit & Hungler 1989:260).

Biographic data
The first section o f the report portrayed the respondents' bio graphic data, as obtained from the 6 6 completed question naires, including their sex, age, marital status, home language, type of school qualification, professional as well as academic qualifications, and current em ploym ent status.This back ground information about the respondents should enable the readers of this report to contextualise the positive and nega tive perceptions about distance education program m es re flected in the questionnaires.

Sex
The fact that 60 (90,9%) of the respondents were female, co incides with the statistics o f the SANC, reflecting that the majority o f registered nurses in the RSA are female.How ever, if the majority o f the female student population should be married and in their childbearing years, the additional load o f studying m ight be placing extrem e dem ands on these women.Should the majority of them be working as well, then they could be regarded as fulfilling three exacting roles simultaneously -those of employee, wife-mother, and student.

Age
Table 1 Age distribution of BA Cur graduates

Hom e language
Pursuing distance education in one's second or third language might be a formidable task, especially when time is at a pre mium because one maintains a full time job and fulfills all the obligations o f being a wife and/or mother at the same time.Studying on one's own in a foreign language could demand considerable additional investments of time, com pared to studying in one's home (first) language.The RSA has eleven official languages, but the Department of Advanced Nursing Sciences, Unisa, offers study materi als only in English and in Afrikaans.
A The actual responses indicated that the three youngest gradu ates were 27 years old.Most successful pupils complete their schooling when they are 18 or 19 years old in the RSA.The oldest student who graduated during 1998 was 54 years old.
The prospects o f professional prom otions, resulting from graduation might be limited for graduates older than 50 years o f age, especially when large numbers of nurses accepted sev erance or early retirement packages in the RSA since 1995.Cross-checking of the questionnaires indicated that the 54year old graduate took 15 years to complete the BA Cur de gree.She did not provide any reasons for requiring 15 years to complete the BA Cur degree.
Those graduates aged between 31 and 40 years, comprising 42,4% of the respondents, might be trying to fulfill the triple role obligations o f being employees, wives and/or mothers, as well as students.The last role might assume the lowest priority, being the only one which is pursued on a voluntary basis, and the only one where achievements can be extended over a num ber o f years.More research might be needed to clarify ways in which students manage to cope with such a role overload, and yet manage to graduate as well.

M a rita l status Table 2 M a rita l status of B A C ur graduates
The majority 43 (65,2%) were married while 4 (6,1%) were divorced and 3 (4,5%) were widows.Only 24,2% of the respondents were reportedly never married, and could be as sumed to have had more time to spend on their studies.Those 65,2% who were married when obtaining their BA C ur de grees, must have been successful in juggling their time, en ergy and resources between family, jo b and study obligations.
The majority of the prescribed books are avail able in English only, necessitating even the Afrikaans speaking students to invest additional effort into understand the prescribed m ateri als.The logistics and financial expenditure of enabling students to study in their home lan guages might be formidable, but lecturers who are aware o f their students' potential language problems could assist these students by using the simplest possible language in their study materials, assignments and examination ques tions, and by explaining difficult concepts in easier terms.
The languages grouped under the "other" cat egory represented only one or two respondents per language listed.N evertheless even the "other" language groups indicated that at least 13,6% of the graduates did not fall within the five major language groups and would thus not have ben efited even if the course materials might have been available in all these five major languages.
Only 9,1% o f the 1997 BA Cur graduates were English speak ing, implying that 89,9% o f these students mastered the (Eng lish) learning m aterials in their second or third language.The skill to read, comprehend and summarise what one has read, is a basic requirem ent of all learning, but even more so in the case of distance education programm es where direct contact and/or com m unication with the lecturer(s) could be minimal or even absent.This places a great responsibility on the lecturers to ensure that the prescribed m aterials are as accessible to their students as possible.The majority of the graduates, 64 out of 6 6 as reflected in Table 5, passed Eng lish as a Grade 12 school subject.Moreover, all the students with the exception of the eleven Afrikaans speaking gradu ates, would have com pleted their basic nursing education courses in English prior to commencing their BA Cur studies at Unisa.This would have enabled them to master the nurs ing science terms in English prior to commencing their stud ies at Unisa.The majority of national and international nurs ing and health care publications are available in English, but very few are available in the other ten languages spoken in the RSA.
Consequently, mastering the study materials in English will enable the graduates to pursue postgraduate stud ies in English.

M a tricu lation exem ption
In the RSA, the term matriculation exemption refers to the fact that the candidates obtained sufficiently high percent ages in their final (Standard 10 or Grade 12) school leaving examinations.Furtherm ore, it is a requirem ent that a certain number o f subjects should be passed at the so-called "higher grade" (more or less equivalent to the U K 's Advanced or "Alevel").Pupils who pass all their school subjects at "standard grade" (more or less equivalent to the U K 's Ordinary or "Olevel") cannot obtain m atriculation exem ption required for university admissions.
The SANC stipulates that the minimum educational require ment for student nurses is merely Standard 10 or Grade 12, matriculation exemption is NOT required by the SANC but might be required by some nursing colleges and is required by all university departments offering basic and post basic nursing education courses in the RSA.Although 74% o f the respondents indicated that they did in fact possess matriculation exemption, it cannot be assumed that they had acquired this at the com pletion of their school ing.An unknown num ber might have obtained "provisional m atriculation exem ption" in order to continue with their BA Cur studies.The results portrayed in Table 4 cannot be ac cepted as necessarily reflecting the real situation, because the question might have been phrased in an ambiguous manner.
Subjects passed fo r Grade 1 2 (Standard 10 ) Respondents were expected to list all the subjects at higher and at standard grades and symbols appearing on their Grade C urationis Professional Q u a lific a tio n s The professional qualifications held by the graduates, as reg istered with the SANC, m ight provide an indication as to their fields o f interest.One person could be registered in any num ber o f categories, therefore the totals do not add up to As the BA Cur degree is only available to registered nurses who have completed their basic training, the reflection that 1 0 0 % o f the respondents were registered general nurses can be assumed to be correct.The other professional qualifica tions display a wide variety o f fields of practice and interest.

Academ ic qualifications
As the questionnaires were sent only to those students who had met all the requirements for the BA Cur degree, all 6 6 (100%) would have received this degree during 1998.The BA Cur degree would be the first academic qualification ob tained by the majority of graduates, because only two respond ents indicated that they had earned other degrees, namely: • one had a B Soc Sc degree, and • one had an Honours B Soc Sc degree.If these indications should be representative o f U nisa's BA Cur students, then the D epartm ent should investigate why students who obtained their basic degrees at other universi ties in the RS A did not pursue their post basic studies at Unisa.

Em ploym ent positions occupied by the respondents
The graduates were requested to describe the nursing posi tions in which they were employed at the time of completing the questionnaires.The majority (33 or 50%) were employed as senior profes sional nurses, w hilst 16 (24,3% ) w orked as professional nurses.Three o f these 16 respondents indicated that they were employed as nurse educators whilst one of the nine chief professional nurses indicated that she was a nursing services manager.Those respondents who held positions as chief professional nurses would have had limited time for their stud ies as these positions imply great demands.Furthermore, 64 Institutions where the respondents were w orking With the exception of the three nurse educators working at universities, four working at colleges, and the one occupa tional health nurse, all the other graduates would have been required to work irregular, varying shifts, over weekends and during the night.W orking irregular and unpredictable shifts might have made studying more difficult because specific weekly studying times could not be scheduled, as persons could do who worked regular hours.

C on clu sion: biographic data
The majority o f the respondents were females, married, be tween 31 and 50 years old, worked as senior professional nurses in hospitals.

Report about the respondents' B A Cur studies at Unisa
This section o f the report addresses the factual issues about the respondents' BA Cur studies, such as the num ber o f years required to com plete their degrees, the courses selected, planned future studies and whether or not they would encour age their children to study at Unisa.

Num ber of years registered to com plete the B A Cur degree
Six (9,1%) students required only four years to complete their BA Cur degrees, but the majority (19 or 28,8%) required six years to do so, whilst 14 (21,2%) needed five years.Thus 39 (59,1%) o f the students managed to complete their BA Cur degrees within the first six years of registration.This would seem to be a commendable achievement considering that the majority were working full-time and were married whilst they studied.Even though they could have completed their de grees within shorter periods of time should they have attended full time courses, their family lives might have been disrupted, their services would not have been available to their em ploy ers, and more costs would have been involved.However, note should be taken o f those students who required more than six years to complete their BA Cur degrees, namely: • eight who required 7 years • seven who needed 8 years • five who needed 9 years • five who needed 1 0 years • one student who needed 15 years.
Twelve courses and laboratory (practical) work needed to be completed to meet the requirements for the BA Cur degree.Thus it could be argued that should students pass two courses per year, they would need six years to complete the degree, or four years should they pass three courses per year.The value to be obtained from a degree, requiring 1 0 years' investment of time and effort could be doubted.On the other hand, these students did finally obtain their degrees and the employers probably benefited from their increased knowledge acquired during their studies.The num ber o f years required to com plete a degree by means o f distance education would seem to be less crucial than in the case of full-time studies.However, students who failed a num ber o f examination papers might have benefited from more effective student support systems.Thirty-five respondents indicated that they failed the follow ing num ber o f papers during their studies (these students had to pass one paper per first year, two papers per second and three papers per third year course):

Respondents' intentions to continue with their studies a t Unisa
A total of 51 (72,3%) o f the respondents indicated that they would continue studying at Unisa, whilst only 14 (21,2%) would not do so.The respondents were requested to provide at least one reason for intending to continue or discontinue their studies at Unisa.The responses to this open-ended ques tion were grouped into sim ilar categories.O ut o f the 14 (2 1 ,2 %) respondents who indicated that they did not intend pursuing further studies at Unisa • four (6,06%) provided personal reasons for discontinuing their studies • three (4,5%) indicated that they would prefer to study at other universities, but failed to provide any reasons • three (4,5) indicated that they would not continue studying at Unisa, because the student fees were too expensive.
The major reasons for continuing with their studies at Unisa, were grouped into the following categories, with the actual numbers in brackets whilst the percentages provided refer to the total num ber of 51 respondents who indicated that they did in fact consider furthering their education: • preference for Unisa because of its high educational stand ards, excellent study materials, com m endable student serv ices, good organisation (29 or 56,9%) • Unisa studies enabled the students to carry on with their family and working lives; enabled students to study at their own time and place (24 or 47,1%) • affordability, because U nisa's fees were considered to be lower than those o f many other universities (4 or 7,8%) • Unisa (the main campus in Pretoria or one o f the regional offices) was within reach of the respondents' homes (5 or 9,8%) • strict supervision was maintained at all U nisa's exam ina tion centres (1 or 1,96%) • U nisa's study materials were available in Afrikaans (1 or 1,96%).
Thus the main reasons for preferring to study at Unisa re volved around U nisa's perceived high standards o f education and the students' abilities to com bine their further studies with their family and working lives.

Advice w hich the graduates w ould give to potential Unisa students
An open-ended question requested the graduates to indicate what advice they would give to their nursing colleagues who considered studying at Unisa.Only two respondents pro vided definite negative responses by stating: "Be ready to gain nothing on com pletion", and "never study through Unisa unless it is your last option" but provided no justifications for this answers.
The other m atter-of-fact advice included that prospective Unisa students should: • register early and start work immediately (14) • never wait till examination times to start studying, but work consistently throughout the year (19) • contact their lecturers when they need help (6 ) • decide which major subjects should be taken right at the beginning of the course, and start off registering for at least one m ajor subject (4) • limit the number of courses taken to two per year (3) • do all the assignments, if at all possible (3) • attend all the group discussions (3) • be prepared to make time for studying (3).
All these suggestions are contained in the D epartm ent's tuto rial letters issued to each student at the beginning of each academic year.These aspects are also stressed during group discussions.Perhaps the Department could em phasise that C urationis these are the suggestions of successful BA Cur graduatesnot of the academic staff -in an effort to make undergraduate students pay more attention to these study guidelines.

Respondents' encouragem ent of their children to becom e Unisa students
One respondent failed to answer this question.Out of the 65 respondents, 54 (83,1%) indicated that they would encour age their children to becom e U nisa students w hereas 11 (16,9%) said they would discourage their children from study ing at Unisa.The reasons for discouraging their children included that: • Unisa is more suitable for more mature students; their chil dren might lack the required self-discipline to succeed ((7) • Unisa is too expensive (1) • distance education is too "strenuous" ( 1 ) • it takes too long to graduate from Unisa (1 respondent who took 5 years to complete her BA Cur degree) • the children should rather pursue full time studies ( 1 ) • the children would register for courses not offered by Unisa, such as medicine and engineering (1).
Reasons for encouraging their children to study at Unisa con cerned mainly: • U nisa's perceived high standard of education (15) • the ability to save money on accommodation, transport and tuition fees (7) • the possibility of combining working and studying (5).

Diplom as/certificates which the respondents w ould consider doing at Unisa
The questionnaire indicated that a number o f diplom as/cer tificates might not yet be available but requested students to indicate which one(s) would be of interest to them.Perhaps the Department could endeavour to inform its final year students about courses, degrees, diplomas and certifi cates which could be pursued subsequent to obtaining the BA Cur degree.Distance education students might not have this knowledge, as became apparent from their answers to these questions.
C onclusion: B A Cur gra du a tes' reports about their studies The majority o f the respondents com pleted their BA Cur de grees within 6 years, followed a m ajor in Health Services Adm inistration, intended continuing their studies at Unisa and encouraging their children to do likewise.A certificate course in PHC would be seriously considered by 29% of the respondents.
B A Cur g ra d u a tes' perceptions concerning the nursing courses com pleted fo r the B A C ur degree a t Unisa This last section of the questionnaire attempted to identify the respondents' perceptions about the nursing courses they com pleted for the BA Cur degree at Unisa.Total 34 100,0

Favou rite nursing course
The major reason for disliking Nursing Ethos and Profes sional Practice was that this subject included too much an cient/irrelevant history (11); respondents who disliked Nurs ing Education (2) and Health Services M anagement (3) did so mainly because both these courses contained too much theory irrelevant to practice, whilst the scope of Community Health Nursing Science was too wide (2).Four graduates were dissatisfied with Nursing Research because the course content was extrem ely difficult and because the statistical calculations were "unclear" (4) -this might be related to the small number o f graduates who passed M athematics for Grade 12 (see Table 5) The suggestions, obtained from an open-ended question indi cating ways in which the least favoured nursing courses could be improved, were grouped according to the courses.
For Nursing Ethos and Professional Practice, the following suggestions were made: • discontinue the course altogether as it repeats the history covered in the basic courses (2 ) • limit the scope, reduce the amount o f history, concentrate on fewer theories and philosophies (7) • make the course more relevant to current nursing situa tions (5).
To improve Health Services M anagement courses, graduates suggested that: • the content be limited ( 1 ) • it be made more relevant to current nursing situations ( 1).
Nursing Education could be improved by • enhancing the relevance of the course materials ( 1 ) • providing more actual information, in stead of merely long lists of references ( 1 ).
• marking the entire assignments, not only selected sections ( 1 ).
Nursing Research lecturers would assist students if they were to provide • more actual workshops where students can practise calcu lations (3); probably because they might lack the basic math ematical skills -see Table 5 • practical examples to explain theoretical concepts (3) • more assignments which should be marked by the lecturers (2) • answers for all the exercises in the Study Guide and for all the assignments ( 1 ).
The suggestions came from small numbers o f graduates, but the lecturers concerned with teaching the specific subjects might be able to enhance student support by paying attention to these suggestions.
Re spondents' perceptions concerning the helpfulness of the lecturers from the D epartm ent of Advanced Nursing Sciences The majority (52 out o f 63, or 82,6%) perceived their lectur ers to be particularly helpful during their studies, whilst four (6,3%) perceived this to be the case "sometimes" and seven ( 1 1 , 1 %) did not perceive their lecturers to be helpful at all.
In response to this open-ended question, graduates indicated that lecturers would be more helpful if they could: • provide more group discussions at all regional offices (18) • be more approachable and refrain from providing vague general answers (3) • replace video conferences with more group discussions (2 ) • concentrate on specific issues during group discussions ( 1 ) • provide structure based on the Study Guides during group discussions ( 1 ) • be available at their phones until 13:00 (1) or 15:00 (2); they should also be sympathetic to students trying to call from public telephones (2 ) • provide more optional assignments and more comments about assignments (2 ).
Similar results were reported by C o leet al (in Price 1997:155) who found that students from the Open University, London, expected to ... have their work treated with respect, to receive an explanation and justification given fo r the grade awarded and to receive a clear explanation o f how the student could im prove... students sought specific comments on the strengths and weaknesses o f the work.
Respondents' perceptions as to whether assignments helped them with their examination preparations With the exception o f one respondent, all answered this ques tion indicating that assignments • helped them to prepare for examinations (57 or 87,7%) • sometimes helped them to prepare for exam inations (3 or 4,6 %) • did not help them to prepare for examinations (5 or 7,7%).
Group discussions offered by the D epa rtm en t  Students need to complete the laboratory work satisfactorily in order to graduate but also in order to obtain registration for additional qualifications with the SANC.The Departm ent's tutorial letters warn students about the expected costs, time and effort to be invested into completing the laboratory work satisfactorily, but the students seemed to be surprised by these demands.

Personal evaluation of the B A C ur degree, Unisa
Out o f the 63 responses to this question, nobody regarded the BA Cur obtained from Unisa to be worth less than than that obtained from any other university in the RSA, whilst 19 (30,2%) regarded the Unisa BA Cur degree to be o f equal worth, and 44 (69,8%) perceived the Unisa BA Cur degree to be worth more than other nursing degrees obtained in the RSA.
Respondents who viewed the BA Cur degree from Unisa to be worth more than nursing degrees obtained from other uni versities in the RSA, indicated that Unisa • m aintains a high standard o f education; U nisa students work much harder and need to m aster more theory and prac tice than students at other universities (14) • offers com prehensive courses; no "fast queue" or "blitz" degrees can be obtained from this university ( 1 0 ) • produces graduates who are respected as achievers (4) • helps its students to achieve self-developm ent through their own efforts (4) • is well known; the graduates need not explain what Unisa is nor where it is (3) • supplies such excellent study guides that other universities in the RSA teach from the Unisa study guides (2) • enables its students not only to learn but also to apply their knowledge in the work situation (2 ) • awarded degrees to President Nelson M andela (1).

Reasons for studying a t Unisa
An open-ended question requested the respondents to indi cate why they chose to study at Unisa.The reasons provided, included that • Unisa was the only university which enabled family and work life to proceed without disruptions (35) • Unisa is well known as an established distance education institution, not a "fly-by night" organisation (14) • other Unisa students recom mended its courses (7) • obtaining a BA Cur degree would help to advance their nursing careers (3) • they wanted to be proud o f the BA Cur degrees obtained from Unisa (2) • self-study was preferred ( 1 ) • the Unisa main campus in Pretoria was impressive (1).

Conclusion
The majority of the 6 6 respondents were females, married, working full time, aged between 31 and 50.Only 9,1% of these BA Cur graduates reported English to be their home language, indicating that the m ajority mastered their study m aterials in their second or third language.M ost students required six years or more to com plete the BA Cur course.Only 43,6% o f the respondents managed to complete their courses w ithout failing any exam ination papers, implying that 56,4% o f these graduates would have required student sup port services.The issue of supporting students who have failed examinations would justify further research.
M ost graduates were satisfied with the study materials, lec turers, discussion classes and assignments and regarded their BA C ur degrees from Unisa to be valued academic qualifica tions.However, greater em phasis on providing effective stu dent support to distance education students pursuing BA Cur program m es could enhance these students' learning experi ences and decrease the num ber o f years required to complete their courses.This would be in accordance with U nisa's vision as stated by the Vice-Chancellor: ... Unisa has the potential o f becoming the m ajor developer o f quality teach ing and learning material, suited to the African c o n tin en t...This it will do by using a variety o f traditional and techno logical delivery and student support systems (Unisa 1999c).

Table 4
Matriculation exemption acquired by respondents

Table 5
Subjects passed for Grade 12 (Standard 10) listed alphabetically

Table 6
Professional qualifications of BA Cur graduates

Table 7
Positions occupied by the respondents

Table 8
Institutions where the respondents were working Health Services M anagement III was probably the favoured major because it enabled the candidates to become registered with the SANC as "Nurse Administrators" -a qualification required by many nursing posts in the RSA.The reason for not favouring Nursing Education III as a major might be re lated to the relative scarcity of posts in the nursing colleges and at university departments o f nursing in the RSA.
port.As the majority o f students in Southern Africa could be regarded as being relatively poor (Unisa 1999c), the finan cial burden of repeating ten failed papers could be prohibitive to many students' and their families.The need to enhance student support was addressed by U nisa's V ice-Chancellor when he stated: The m ajor hurdle in providing quality stu dent support in our distance education context is that o f lim ited resources, both financial and human.However, solu- The contents o f such a course were cov ered in the Com m unity Health Nursing Science courses at that time, but separate PHC certificates were not issued to the Unisa graduates.Two respondents who phoned the researcher wanted to know where and when they could register for the PHC course because their employers desired them to obtain these certificates as soon as possible.The Department inves tigated the possibility of offering courses in PHC, and would commence offering these courses in the foreseeable future.
As each respondent could mark more than one response, the total number o f responses for this item added up to 107, not66.M ost graduates would like to pursue a diploma in Primary Health Care (PHC).

Table 1 1
Nursing courses favoured by the respondentsWith the exception of the three nurse educators working at universities, four working at colleges, and the one occupa tional health nurse, all the other graduates would have been required to work irregular, varying shifts, over weekends and during the night.Working irregular and unpredictable shifts might have made studying more difficult because specific weekly studying times could not be scheduled, as persons could do who worked regular hours.