The study aimed to study the profile characteristics, the motivational factors for joining of the course, evaluation of course effectiveness based on students perception, measurement of awareness, knowledge, symbolic adoption and actual adoption levels of the distance learners and also the problems and suggestions of the distance learners for effective functioning of Directorate of Open and Distance Learning, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Tamil Nadu, India. This will be helpful to understand the learner's position and needs of the learners regarding essentiality to complete a certificate course and the knowledge required from the course by the learners respectively. It will be helpful to concentrate and enhance the course flexibility or student favored factors to attract more number of enrollment in those courses. The findings of the study help us to further improve the quality and standard of the certificate courses which in turn benefits the distance learner to gain more knowledge.