Subject Position of University Students in Online Education

Abstract

The success of training and personal development in the educational environment of a university largely depends on the subjectivity of students, i.e., their personal activity / passivity. Based on some research of experimental data, we analysed the factors influencing the development of the subjective, objective and negative position of students when working in the environment of e-learning and online education. The aim of this work was to undertake a comparative study of the tendency to adopt a subject / object position among students (for example, students from five Moscow universities). The interaction of students with the information environment was analysed. The ideas of Russian psychologists about children's active position in the learning process, developed by S.L. Rubinstein (student-centered approach), became the methodological basis of the study. The process of the formation of the personal inclination of learners to adopt an active (subject) or subordinate (object) role position in interactions with the educational environment and its subjects (teachers, students and parents) is not studied well enough. A sample of 390 students answered the questions about their attitude to education and learning. The findings revealed that the level of subject, object and negative position is different. Subject position is more expressed, but object position to education also has a significant level. We found that the students with a high level of computer skills are tending to have the higher developed subject position. The statistically significant difference was also found between the higher level of object position and a positive attitude towards distant leaning and online education.