Inter-Personal Skills among Urban and Rural Distance Learners in Relation to Gender and Course of Study

The present study aimed at studying the interpersonal skills among distance learners. Arandomly selected sample of 655 post-graduate students pursuing their studies through distance mode were taken up for the study. ANOVA was computed to find out the main and interaction effects among urban and rural distance learners with respect to gender and course of study. The findings of the study revealed that rural distance learners showed significantly higher level of interpersonal skills than urban distance learners. The results pertaining to the significant interaction effects between location and course of study revealed that rural distance learners pursuing professional discipline showed significantly higher level of interpersonal skills than urban distance learners pursuing professional discipline. However, reverse results were found though not significant for distance learners of academic discipline.