Digital educational environment in the pandemia context: the student audience intentions

Abstract

The research problematics relates to the general crisis of the higher education paradigm, disintegration of external factors and the internal ideal prototype of the education highly organized structure. The article objective is to identify the student audience’s consciousness intentions in the field of self-realization, education and career objectified during the pandemia due to the radical functional turn of the education sphere towards the remote digital environment. The new conditions determine the processes of crystallization of explicit and implicit needs, trends and problems in many areas of public activity, and especially in the field of digitalization of higher education. The social and personal consciousness intentionality becomes nowadays a multi-faceted layer, which research aims to materialize the needs and aspirations of new generations in the self-realization sphere. The research methodological basis is the current concepts of the digital society and digital educational environment, as well as the information society theory. The study methodology is surveying full-time students of bachelor’s and master’s programs during distance learning. According to objective to identify the student intentions, which external and hidden meanings are emphasized and objectified at this period, the surveying tasks are the following: 1) determining the effectiveness level of distance learning from the view point of the subject of educational process (student audience); 2) identifying the essential and related problems of online learning; 3) revealing the needs, expectations and aspirations of young people in the self-realization, continuing and international education, career sphere. The study results show that half of the students are dissatisfied with the distance learning format. Problems are associated with rising the volume of independent work, deficit of user competencies, lack of methodological support and orientation in incoming information flow growth, psycho-emotional overloads due to an unusual lifestyle and training, and decrease in motivation to learn. Along with this, first-and second-year students demonstrate a desire for education in general; interest in learning additional knowledge and skills, international contacts in the training process; readiness for self-realization and obtaining a new socio-cultural experience.