University in Pandemic Conditions: E-Learning in the Representations and Evaluations of Teachers and Students

Abstract

The development of information technologies is an important element of modern society. Their potential is quite high: access to different kinds of information, increased connectivity, high mobility, etc. Accordingly, at the State, professional and social levels, the question of the realization of these educational opportunities is being brought up to the fore and is being actively discussed: the replacement of correspondence education by distance education and the expansion of the face-to-face distance learning format. The worldwide COVID‑19 pandemic, the transfer of employees to remote work, and educational institutions to remote format showed the opportunities and challenges of the practical implementation of remote forms. The experiences of the participants in this process had much in common, but also significant differences. The analysis of this experience, including through sociological methods, is of great scientific and practical importance. The article presents the results of a sociological study conducted in June-­July 2020 among teachers and students of the Kuban State University, devoted to the problems of the university’s transition to distance learning in the context of the COVID‑19 pandemic. As a completely new form, total distance learning has created many difficulties for participants in the educational process. On the basis of the results of the study, it was concluded that teachers and students had encountered several types of problems in the transition to a new form of education: organizational and technical, pedagogical and socio-­psychological. The latter group of complexities can be seen as fundamental, requiring ad hoc and, in a sense, longer-term adaptation.