Psychological Conditions for the Effectiveness of Distance Education

Abstract

The article deals with psychological conditions impacting distance education in high school. Information on the specifics of the use of distance educational technologies is analysed. Special attention was paid to motivation and reflection. Following methods were used: psychological and formative pedagogical experiment, testing, observation, analysis of percentage trends, Student’s t-test. The independent variable of the experiment is motivational exercises and reflective reports of distance courses, and the dependent variable is professional competence of the research participants. The domination of the medium indicators of motivational, cognitive, operational-activity, reflective components of professional competence of students was revealed. The students’ ability to carry out self-analysis is the least developed. A formative experiment conducted in the control group revealed a shift in cognitive and operational-activity components. Positive dynamics was found for all studied parameters in the experimental group, which used motivational exercises and reflective reports. The calculation of Student’s t-test confirmed significance of all detected transformations. The study proves the importance of creating psychological conditions to improve the effectiveness of distance education. We see the possibility of improving the developed methodology in the individualization of psychological assignments. The results of the study can be used as a basis for specialized psychological training programmes for the teachers who deliver distance learning courses. Further prospects for the research on the problem are studying the impact of the psychological state of teachers on the effectiveness of distance education, as well as comparing the results of the introduction of certain psychological conditions in traditional and distance learning.