STRUCTURAL EQUATIONS MODELING OF THE DIGITALIZATION PROCESS INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EDUCATIONAL SERVICES MARKET

Abstract

The educational services market functions under the influence of numerous factors that have both direct and indirect effects on it. In today's conditions, they primarily include the digitalization process, the characteristic feature of which is its impact on all spheres of social life, and the educational services market is no exception. The digitization process ensures the formation of the necessary digital competencies in the population and the employment of qualified personnel in the field of IT. The question of researching the impact of the digitalization process on the development of the educational services market is becoming more and more relevant and is especially acute in the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The information base of the conducted research is official statistical data of Eurostat and the European Commission, analytical reports and scientific publications of domestic and foreign authors regarding the connection between the digitization process and the development of the educational services market. In the countries of the European Union, the digitalization process is an integral element of their development, its strategic orientations are defined in the document “Digital Compass 2030: The European Path of the Digital Decade”, which aims to the improvement of digital capabilities in infrastructure and education, as well as in the digital transformation of business and public services . The study was conducted on the dataset of indicators of 27 European countries characterizing the digitalization process and the development of the educational services market in 2021, by modeling structural equations using the PLS-SEM partial least squares method. The results of the conducted research confirmed the existence of a statistically significant positive impact of the digitization process on the development of the educational services market as a whole at the level of the structural model. Such indicators as the level of household Internet access, the employment of IT specialists, state financing of education, and the share of the population with higher education are statistically significant and relevant within the measurement models. Taking into account the European integration vector of Ukraine's development, the research results can be used to harmonize the process of digitalization of the economy and the transformation of the educational services market of Ukraine, in particular in the direction of expanding the level of access to the Internet and stimulating employment in the IT sphere.