This action research project aims to understand whether teachers are mastering the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct classroom action research through two courses, Classroom Action Research (CAR) and Enhancing Teaching Professional Skills (PKP: Pemantapan Kemampuan Profesional), offered via distance education to Indonesian teachers and to identify areas for possible improvement of both courses. The research was conducted in two urban study centers located in the cities of Bogor and Tangerang in the Indonesian provinces of West Java and Banten. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, questionnaires, and focus group discussions. All data were analyzed for patterns that might offer insight into the problems tutors and teacher-learners were facing as they worked through the Classroom Action Research (PTK: Penelitian Tindakan Kelas) module and tutorial. The research team from Indonesia Open University (UT: Universitas Terbuka) identified several problematic aspects of each course, including excessive lag time between the first and second courses, insufficient examples of model classroom action research projects, a lack of supervised practice of action research techniques, variability of tutorial quality, and a mismatch between course assessments and the content and purpose of the courses. While the findings of this study focus primarily on two distance courses offered by UT, they offer insight into the challenges of providing in-service teacher development via distance education in the Indonesian context. Key Words: Distance Learning, Classroom Action Research, Teacher Professional Skill

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Artikel ini memberi gambaran riil mahasiswa pada institusi pendidikan tinggi yang menerapkan sistem pendidikan jarak jauh (PJJ) yang diperoleh dari 29 laporan penelitian, artikel dan makalah seminar tentang mahasiswa Universitas Terbuka (UT) yang merupakan satu-satunya institusi pendidikan tinggi yang menerapkan sistem PJJ secara utuh. Secara khusus, di sini dibahas profil, persepsi terhadap PJJ, motivasi, strategi belajar, pengenalan dan pemanfaatan media dalam proses belajar, serta kendala belajar yang dialami mahasiswa PJJ. Gambaran riil ini diharapkan dapat memberikan pemahaman yang lebih operasional tentang siapa dan bagaimana mahasiswa melakukan proses pembelajaran, serta bagaimana mereka menyikapi proses belajar di sistem PJJ. Pada gilirannya, informasi tersebut diharapkan dapat dijadikan rujukan bagi institusi pendidikan yang menerapkan sistem PJJ untuk mengelola institusinya sehingga proses pembelajaran dapat berjalan dengan efektif.

Since 2013, Universitas Terbuka (UT) has been participated in 'Bidikmisi', a government of Indonesia program which provides scholarship for students in higher education institution. To be eligible, student must fresh graduate from senior high school, have good academic record in his/her senior high school, and faces financial limitations. Bear in mind the students' limitation in self-directed learning, requirement to success in distance education environment, UT requires all 'Bidikmisi' students to attend an 8 week-sessions of face to face (F2F) tutorial sessions for all courses taken. This rather different approach is like a two-edged knife: positive if students accept this as beneficial to their learning process and negative if students consider this as reducing chances of doing other activities. To analyse students' perception on this matter, questionnaires were developed and distributed to all 'Bidikmisi' students registered in the second semester of 2016. The questionnaires are focussed on studnets' perception in three aspects, namely students' discipline to attend and to hand-in assignments in F2F tutorial sessions, tutors' quality, and role of F2F tutorial for mastering learning materials. During August-October 2016, the questionnaires were send to eight purposively chosen UT Regional Offices (ROs) and further distibuted to all Bidikmisi students in the UT ROs. A number of 366 students filled-out and returned the questionnaires. The results showed that almost all of the respondents attended the tutorial sessions, handed-in all assignment, perceived tutors as dsicipline and providing enough feedback, and the sessions helped the respondents doing their final exams.