MOSCOW (Realist English). The overwhelming majority of teachers point to a sharp decrease in the effectiveness of their educational activities when switching to online education. This includes a decrease in professional motivation and interest in the final result of work, mental detachment from students and indifference to them, increased anxiety due to fears of deterioration of health, indifference to professional development, loss of visual and non-verbal control over students. This result was shown by a joint study conducted by sociologists, professors of SFU Vitaly Kovalev, Alexander Dyatlov and graduate student Alexandra Latsveeva. The full text of the study is published in the journal “Science. Culture. Society”.
“The opinion of teachers and professors on the main positions correlates with the point of view of students. However, a stable group of about 25% of students has been identified, who are focused on online learning and demonstrate the conviction that in the conditions of its implementation, their resources for quality education are increasing. We have formulated a proposal according to which this group of students should study in special online (digital) schools according to a reduced program, where accelerated vocational training will be a priority,” sociologists note.
According to the study, the majority of teachers — 75% — proceed from the fact that the classroom format is the only possible tool for creating an intellectual platform that ensures joint development of teachers and students.
“Refusal to do this is actually equivalent to the loss of the main types of educational resources necessary for personal development. In addition, a significant part (39.9%) additionally indicated a decrease in motivation for professional activity. The percentage of those who do not actualize this risk is small,” the study says.
According to the sociologists, if we take into account the results of empirical research, it is quite acceptable to say that online learning does not have sufficient resources:
“This could potentially lead to a decrease in the quality of education in the Russian higher education. In general, we can expect professional degradation of teachers under the conditions of online learning. In this context, the activities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Russia, which literally pushes through the “on-lineization” of higher education, should be viewed extremely negatively.”
The researchers propose to create an opportunity for those who oppose the possibility of classical education to receive e-learning:
“Supporters of online learning are willing to settle for a lower level of quality. They are not very interested in fundamental education, they are convinced of their ability to design the quality for individual needs, they are set up for self-education along an individual trajectory, and they are ready to replace the quality itself with convenience. Their opponents, on the contrary, are aimed at long-term educational activity, gradual mastery of a profession with the possibility of subsequent retraining or going into science, orientation to an external standard of education quality and expectations of mobilization of motivational potential from a teacher.
It is quite obvious that maintaining institutional balance requires such students to study in different types of educational institutions. Online for the first group of them is the best option. But the education of this group of students should absolutely not be carried out in classical universities.”
The sociologists talk about the need to create appropriate digital schools, which would be granted the right, subject to the necessary conditions, to issue state-issued diplomas of higher education:
“Such schools should be provided with all the necessary amount of material, technical and information resources. Training in them should be paid, because any form of online learning requires a large amount of financial investment. The most expensive of them is the development of simulacrum programs that could recreate the intellectual and methodological resource of the teacher in the electronic space. Currently, these programs are practically not used. Therefore, the formulated proposal is focused on the future, and now it would be rational to abandon the forced transfer of state universities to online education and return to the proposed reform at a suitable level of information technology development.”
