Abstract—The Open Universities nowadays have been growing up with the high number of students. At the same time, they also facea high number of non re-enrolment and in turn have affected the retention rate. This study was aimed to explore factors contributing to student progress in the Indonesia Open University by employing mixed methods study. In this study, student progress refers to continuation of learning by re-enrolling within four consecutive semesters. A mixed methods research with the design of sequential explanatory study was opted by obtaining the quantitative findings from surveying 127 students and then was followed by multiple case study from four purposefully selected respondents. In the quantitative phase, 12 predictor variables were found to have important contributions to the predictive model of student progress. Meanwhile, in the qualitative phase, three major themes emerged from the multiple case study analysis: 1) self-motivation; 2) quality of institutional support; 3) interaction; and 4) supporting environment. The quantitative and qualitative findings are discussed with reference to previous research. Index Terms—Student progress, Open University, distance education. I. INTRODUCTION There are much evidence that retention in distance education programmes is lower than in conventional or face to face programmes[1], [2]. Carr [3] shed light that retention in distance education programmes has been often 10 – 20 percentage points lower than in conventional programmes and less than 50% of distance education students finish their courses. Furthermore, Rovai [4] also portrayed that adult students in campus programmehave lower retention rates than conventional aged students. The low retention rate in distance education contexts has attracted researchers to investigate the factors influencing student retention in different contexts and theoretical frameworks. In general, there were 2 influential models used to explain the persistence of adult learners [4]: 1) psychological model of persistence; and 2) a model of institution-student “fit”. The psychological model asserts that motivation and volition have important contribution in explaining persistence. At a certain condition, motivation can be used to depict why student motivated to enroll in the programme but it is not sufficient for explaining the fluctuation of motivation when obstacles and distractions occur during the learning process. At this point, persistence can be explained from volitional process which has functions to maintain focus and effort toward goals despite potential distractions [5]. Meanwhile, a model of institution-student “fit” is a more recent model and explains the persistence by looking at the student, institutional, and environmental variables. Several influential models in this approach are Tinto’s Model of Departure [6], [7], Bean and Metzner’s Model [8], and Kember’s Model of Student Progress [9]–[11]. validated the function of both models. The findings of those studies reported that student persistence mostly can be explained from three significant factors: student factors, course/programme factors, and environmental factors. Student factors consisted of several sub-factors, such as academic background; prior educations; relevant skills, and psychological attributes, for instance, motivation, locus of control, self-efficacy, and satisfaction. Course/programme factors encompassed course design, institutional supports, and students’ interactions. Meanwhile, environmental factors comprised work commitments and supportive study environments including supports from family, friends, or collegues [12]. However, most of those empirical studies were conducted in online learning programmes in dual mode institutions, an institution that adds distance education to its previously established campus and class-based teaching. These dual mode institutions have different characteristics with Open Universities as single-mode institutions, distance learning universities that all faculty and staff of the institution are exclusively devoted to distance education. The Open Universities typically aim to deliver education to students who are not physically “on site” and typically employ open entry admission [12], [13]. The existence of the Open University worldwide as a single-mode institution has made higher education being more accessible than before, particularly for people whose live in a limited economy and in isolated rural areas [14]. There are the huge growing number of students who enrolled in the Open Universities and most of them are classified as mega universities with at least 100.000 students [15], [16]. Moreover, the largest number of distance learners in the world was located in the Asian context and was served by 10 mega universities and around 100 distance education institutions [17]. This study investigates factors influencing student progress in the Indonesia Open University and the extend to which the three identified factors (internal, institutional, and external factors) influence student progress. Student progress in this study refers to the behavior of continuing learning and progressive re-enrolment despite the presence of obstacles Exploring Factors in Contributing Student Progress in the Open University Muhammad Husni Arifin International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 6, No. 1, January 2016 29 DOI: 10.7763/IJIET.2016.V6.653 The empirical studies on student persistence in distance education conducted in the past 10 years (2000–2010) have Manuscript received July 1, 2014; revised September 11, 2014. Muhammad Husni Arifin is with University of Southampton, the United Kingdom (e-mail: mha2e11@soton.ac.uk).