International Mining Students’ Perceptions of Online and Classroom Interaction (A Case Study of Kuzbass University)

Abstract

Distance education, which opens up a new era of digitalization and sustainable development of the society, is gaining momentum today. However, a vast array of challenges comes up when online interaction in which student and teacher are engaged fully replaces communication in traditional classroom. This paper seeks to contribute to the advantages of face-to-face learning, as perceived by the international mining students. The data have been collected from the open format questionnaires fulfilled by the overseas students who came to study mining engineering at the university of Kuzbass. The qualitative content analysis and, subsequently, the researchers’ interpretation of the data reveals that students observe various features related to student teacher interaction in online and offline settings. Notably, these features correlate to the variables constituting the core of pedagogical interaction: performance, motivation, communication, cognition, emotions, physical state, and temporal dimension.