Honest distant education: do expectations differ from reality? The viewpoint of freshmen

ABSTRACT

The article is aimed at examination of the first-year students’ opinion about distance education, as well as their social behaviour and academic performance during online English language classes in Kazakhstan. The initial survey was conducted among the freshmen of the four biggest universities of Kazakhstan: KazUIR&WL after Ablai khan, KazNU after al-Farabi, KazNPU after Abay and AlmaU. The aim of the survey was to investigate the students' personal needs and attitude towards online education, their needs and personal feelings about the learning process. On February 1, in Kazakhstan, the situation with distance education changed, and some of the freshmen were allowed to switch back to the traditional learning (for practical disciplines only, e.g. English). Thus, the next stage of the study was to specify the impact of distant learning onto the social behaviour and academic performance of the freshmen of KazUIR&WL after Ablaikhan, by observing their English language classes (traditional and online) and compare the results. The two-week classes examination resulted in the undeniable fact that distance education phenomenon affects learners’ behaviour and performance during the lesson, but not always in a negative way, as it is traditionally thought. Taking into consideration the situation with the pandemic of COVID-19 and a growing possibility of transferring a greater part of education to online regime, the findings reported in this study might be found of a particular interest by scholars and policymakers in educational sphere.

KEYWORDS:

• Distant education
• distant learning
• online learning
• socialization of students
• first-year students

Acknowledgements

The authors of the present study are sincerely grateful to all the participants for making their contribution to the research:

Special gratitude is to be addressed to the Basic Department of International Relations and the Center of Language Preparation of KazUIR&WL after Ablai khan:

the dean of the faculty if International Relations Hairullaeva Venera

the head of the Basic Department of International Relations Elubayeva Perizat.

This project was conducted with the help of the English language teachers of the Basic Department of International Relations:

Teacher Mukatova Dinara MA

Senior teacher Alimbayeva Dameli

For sure, the present study would have never been implemented without an enormous input of the students of Kazakh University of International relations and World Languages after Ablai khan; Almaty Management University (AlmaU); Kazakh National Pedagogical University after Abay; Kazakh National University after al-Farabi, who kindly agreed to share their vision of the topic.

Special thanks to the first-year students from the faculty of International Relations of KazUIR&WL, for sharing their precious time, participating in sour observation classes and making a contribution which cannot be overestimated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Begunova Mariya

Mariya Begunova is a deputy dean, a researcher in the sphere of Higher Education, English language teaching, Methodology and Teaching Policies. She got her bachelor degree at Kazakh Ablaikhan University of International Relation and World Languages (KazUIR&WL) in 2014 and right after that, she started to do her master’s degree on the major “Foreign languages (two foreign languages)”. Mariya has published numerous papers in international and Kazakhstani journals. Currently, she is a PhD student at Soochow University majoring in “Higher education”.

Xu Qingyu

Xu Qingyu, Chair Professor of Faculty of Education, Soochow University. The main professional interests of Xu include education policy research in China, comparative education, higher education and education sociology. Xu Qingyu has a bunch of personal and professional qualities. Once Dean of Faculty of Education at Soochow University, he demonstrated good professional characteristics. Overall, Professor Xu has published more than 100 research papers in SSCI and CSSCI journals, as well as several books.