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461
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
Introduction
Online learning has been attracted close interest from scientists for last two decades. It is caused
by new information and technical possibilities of organizing educational work in a remote format. Modern
technologies provide instantaneous transmission of educational information over a distance and maintain
synchronous audiovisual contact between the teacher and the student. Thanks to new technological
opportunities, a teacher in the classroom is no longer considered by a certain part of society as something
mandatory for receiving a quality education. This part of society represents online learning as a modern
educational model that fully meets the requirements and demands of the time. This position is reected in
scientic discourse (Golovanova, 2019; Grechushkina, 2021; Smirnova, 2019). However, many scientists
support an alternative point of view, according to which online learning is seen as a threat to high-quality,
Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning
Aleksander V. Dyatlov1* , Vitaly V. Kovalev2 , Diana N. Chilingarova3
1Head of the Department of Economic Sociology and Regional Management, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don,
Russia, e-mail: avdyatlov@yandex.ru
2Department of Industrial and Applied Sociology, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
e-mail: vitkovalev71@gmail.com
3Deputy Director for Educational Work of the Municipal Autonomous Educational Institution School No. 22, Rostov-on-Don,
Russia, e-mail: diana5554777@rambler.ru
Abstract: The article analyzes the possibility of transitioning a general education school to an online learning format.
The indicators are such categories as educational activity, quality of education, intensity of education, learning motives. To
achieve this goal, a sociological survey of high school students in Rostov-on-Don (Russia), as well as their parents and school
teachers, was conducted. The last two groups of respondents are presented in the status of experts. Based on the analysis of
empirical data, the following conclusions were made. More than half of all high school students surveyed (66.6%) expressed their
intention to continue the online learning experience they received during the response to the COVID-19 epidemic. However, the
conjugations of willingness to study online with the categories “learning motives”, “quality of education”, “intensity of education”
showed that the high motivation declared by high school students for the learning process does not correspond to their real
behavior in distance lessons. The main motive for choosing online education for high school students is the convenience of
this format of education. The survey showed a low degree of signicance of other reasons for choosing online education.
Preferences for online convenience and the desire to learn asynchronously reect the unmanifested goal of getting out of the
teacher’s control in order to reduce their educational activity. It can be assumed that this is due to the social immaturity of high
school students and the lack of understanding by most of them of the value of secondary education. Based on the analyzed
data, three approximately equal groups of respondents were identied. In the rst group, high school students are focused on the
standard school-lesson system with elements of e-learning (40% of respondents). In the second group, the advantages of online
learning are articulated, which are associated with convenience and greater resource potential compared to classical learning
(35% of respondents). The third group represents the interests of high school students, who are not so much interested in the
format of education as the opportunity to get out of the control of the teacher and nd themselves in a convenient educational
environment to simulate learning activities (25% of respondents). This means that online learning format, the usefulness of
which is obvious only if students have a stable cognitive activity, is unacceptable for most high school students.
Keywords: online learning, quality of education, intensity of education, learning motives, high school students, pedagogues,
parents.
Original scientic paper
Received: August 15, 2023.
Revised: November 02, 2023.
Accepted: November 10, 2023.
UDC:
37.018.43:004.738.5(470)”2022”
10.23947/2334-8496-2023-11-3-461-473
© 2023 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
*Corresponding author: avdyatlov@yandex.ru
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Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
intensive educational process (Ivanova and Murugova, 2020; Kuznetsov, 2020; Kovalev and Latsveeva,
2021).
It would be wrong to reduce the problem of the relevance of online learning in high school only
to the technological aspect. The consciousness of children is not a computer program that can be
lled with all the information necessary for life through technical communication channels. The main
question is whether Russian schoolchildren have cognitive activity sufcient for the emergence of intrinsic
motivation for learning activities. Depending on the answer to it, scientists determined the prospects
for the development of e-learning in high school. In essence, this means that it was through the fact of
acknowledging or denying motivation that the very possibility of transferring schoolchildren to the digital
learning format was assessed. When answering this question, all experts are divided into two large
groups: the rst unites scientists who support assertion that schoolchildren are intellectually and socially
ready to switch to online lessons – in their opinion, the majority of students will not lose motivation (Said,
2018; Solovieva and Semenova, 2020; Razmacheva, 2021; Kozitsyna, 2021). A different position is held
by those who do not see high school students as having sufcient cognitive activity to switch to remote
mode (Markeeva, 2020; Bakaeva, 2016; Nishanbaeva, 2021). The second point of view currently prevails
in the scientic community.
The study of the established scientic discourse, however, showed that Russian sociologists had
not conducted empirical sociological research on the study of the motivation, intensity and quality of
education of high school students. The present work aims to close this gap in science.
Materials and Methods
The theoretical and methodological foundations of the study are based on the approach developed
in the course of the joint scientic work of V.I. Chuprov and Yu.A. Zubok (Zubok and Chuprov, 2020;
Chuprov and Zubok, 2008). The authors call it polyparadigm, uniting the most interesting results achieved
in the previous scientic tradition in study of youth. In the framework of the scientic activities of these
Russian sociologists, the most signicant features that form the sociological denition of youth as an age
group were integrated. “The variety of these features determines the complex internal structure of youth,
its differentiation and differences, in which its essential properties are revealed. These are the transition
of social status, lability, extremeness, transgressiveness of consciousness, increasing globalization and
new forms of standardization” (Zubok and Chuprov, 2017). These characteristics have been detailed in
the theoretical works of researchers. In them, young people are characterized by social instability, change
of interests, mobile shift of value accentuations in the hierarchy of their own needs. The authors argue that
the personal properties of this age group are extremely variable and this inevitably affects the properties
of social interactions of young people. It is difcult for young people to x their interest on one concrete
thing, they need a change of impressions, a constant feeling of novelty.
It is necessary to say a few words about the author’s categorical apparatus. It was developed in
such a way that questions of the questionnaire together constituted a variable image of cognitive activity
of high school students. The basic concepts differentiated in the questionnaire include: motives, needs,
personality traits of a high school student, motivations for action, educational goals.
The empirical base of the study was formed on the basis of a mass sociological survey conducted
by the authors in January-February 2022. Respondents who received personal experience of learning
activities in online learning were interviewed. The study involved 860 high school students, 1246 parents
and 636 teachers living in Rostov-on-Don. To increase the representativeness of the method used, the
sample included the parents of the surveyed high school students and those teachers who had experience
of teaching high school students online. Data processing was carried out in the SPSS-22 program.
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463
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
Results and Discussions
First, we evaluate individual feelings from the learning experience (work, control of high school
students) during the period of self-isolation and social distancing. We will be interested in attitudes towards
compulsory online learning.
Table 1
Distribution of answers to the question: “What are your individual feelings from the experience of
distance learning (working at school)?”, %
The results were partly expected, but quite revealing. More than half of high school students would
not mind going back to remote mode. But, importantly, the vast majority of respondents who made this
choice pointed to the convenience of online learning, rather than its ability to provide quality education.
Meanwhile, for this variable, the respondents could choose two options. However, convenience was
chosen by 50% of high school students, and only 16.6% expressed condence that online learning gives
a quality result. We cannot say that high school students are not interested in quality issues, because
33.8% chose the option “I am against online – quality of education is declining.” Even more signicant
results were shown by teachers (64.3%) and parents (49.3%), denying the ability of online learning to
ensure the quality of education.
The largest scale of rejection of online learning is shown by parents. Among them, only 7.4% chose
the option “I would like to continue – it is convenient for me” (teachers - 22.9%).
Supporters of online learning prioritize the convenience of study (work) when choosing this form of
education. Cautiously for the time being, we will make an assumption that even to the detriment of quality.
But so far this thesis has no valid evidence.
In addition to quality, the ability to maintain a high intensity of learning activities in online learning
should be recognized as signicant. It is understood as the ability to perform a certain amount of educational
tasks per unit of time, or the ability to engage in educational activities for a certain period of time, or both.
Table 2
Distribution of answers to the question: “Did your intensity of learning activity decrease in conditions
of online learning?”, %
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464
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
There is one important aspect of this variable that needs attention. From the table 1 it follows that
more than half of high school students are aimed at continuing their studies online. Meanwhile, only
32.2% of them are convinced that the intensity of their educational activities has increased. It can be
assumed with some degree of condence that in this group there is a large stratum of respondents who
perceive online learning as a way to reduce the intensity of learning activities.
Connecting with the question of evaluating one’s attitude to online learning will help us understand
the potential size of the group of high school students for whom the rejection of classroom-contact learning
can be interpreted as cost minimization.
Table 3
Conjugation of answers to the questions: “What are your individual feelings from the experience of
distance learning (working at school)?” and “Did your intensity of learning activity decrease in conditions
of online learning?”, %
Some explanations for the Table 3: in the line record there are three groups in which the assessment
of the results of the intensity of learning activities in the online learning mode is determined. Frequency
distributions are given in brackets. The columns indicate the characteristics of attitudes towards their
own experience of distance learning. The status of the variables has an entry in the columns, because
we nd out how much learning tasks are performed by high school students in each of the four groups of
schoolchildren who assessed their learning experience in online learning.
The pairing results show the reliability of the data obtained. Those who negatively assessed their
experience of online learning, for the most part, are condent in its low intensity. For example, in the group
“I am against online – quality of education is declining” – 56.0% indicated a decrease in the intensity of
study (36.1% found it difcult to draw conclusions). There is also a noticeable strong change in relation
to the average distributions: in the group of high school students who oppose online because of the
deterioration in the quality of education, the variant “I solved more educational tasks” was chosen by 4,9%
(for the total sample 32,2%); and by the group of high school students who do not like to study online –
10,9% (for the total sample 32,2%).
Other distributions among respondents, where the online experience is rated positively due to its
convenience. In this group, the attitude to the intensity of study in the conditions of online learning does
not differ much from the average values for the entire sample. Here, 39.3% of respondents solved more
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Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
educational tasks (32.2% in the total sample). The increase in the number of high school students who
successfully solved a larger amount of educational problems, as we see, is insignicant. But this is not
even more signicant. As you can easily see at the intersection of the rst column and the second line,
26% of high school students from this group (online is convenient) chose the answer option “I solved
a smaller amount of educational tasks due to overwork, reduced control by the teacher and the loss of
the opportunity to receive teacher explanation in time”. Moreover, the downward differences in the total
sample are not signicant (26%<30.9%). It is in this segment that you need to look for the bulk of high
school students, for whom online is just a way to reduce the intensity of learning.
Equally indicative are the results in the second column group: “I would like to continue – it improves
the quality of education” (16.6%). Deviations from the average frequency indicators are very signicant.
In this group, 59.3% of respondents are convinced that they solve a larger volume of educational tasks
(32.2% in the total sample). The decrease in the intensity of learning is no longer as noticeable as in the
group where online learning was chosen for convenience. Only 15% indicated the solution of a smaller
volume of tasks (30.9% in the total sample). These 15% of high school students are also potentially
adding to the cohort of those who are aimed at reducing the intensity of their studies.
Having dealt with the data obtained and revealed their reliability, we then calculate the approximate
number of high school students for whom the rejection of classical education can be interpreted as a
conscious decrease in the intensity of educational work. To do this is quite simple. The action will be
performed in two stages, separately for the groups “online is convenient” and “online is qualitatively”. The
rst group (“online is convenient”) makes up 50% of the entire sample (Table 1). In it, 26% of respondents
indicated a decrease in the volume of tasks to be solved, and 34.7% found it difcult to answer. Both
of these gures should be divided by two, highlighting half of the respondents from the total sample.
Consequently, 13% of all high school students surveyed chose online only for the sake of convenience,
and 17.3% presumably also, at least in some part of their learning activities. The second group (“online
is qualitatively”) makes up 16.6% of the entire sample (Table 1). It indicated a decrease in the volume of
tasks to be solved and found it difcult to answer - 15% and 25.7% of respondents. Relative to the general
sample - 2.5% and 4.7%. Summing up the results for both groups, it turns out that 15.5% (13% + 2.5%)
of respondents chose online learning even in the face of a reexive decrease in the volume of tasks to
be solved, and 22% (17.3% + 4.7%) conditions of non-reexible decrease in the volume of tasks to be
solved. Thus, their choice of the form of education in favor of online is not associated with the success
of solving educational problems. That is, convenience is a value in itself, acting as a priority in relation to
intensity. These gures are very symptomatic and indicate a high percentage of respondents (more than
a third of the number of respondents) for whom intensity in training is not considered a signicant choice
and needs external motivation.
Returning to the data in the Table 2, we note that more than a third of the surveyed high school
students (36.9%) found it difcult to determine the state of intensity of their educational activities. The
reasons for this may be different, but it is important for us to understand that more than a third of the
respondents demonstrate that they do not have the proper indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of
online learning. This is important from the point of view of learning motivation, because in this selected
group, motives lose their connection with the results of education. This group can be dened as not being
indifferent to learning results, but not having the ability to objectively assess the intensity of their learning
activities.
The teachers were extremely critical. Only 7.1% supported the position according to which the
intensity of learning activity in the context of online learning is growing (the fact of a decrease was noted
by 41.9%). It is hardly possible to question their expertise on this issue. Let us assume that teachers
themselves work more effectively in the online format, and this is inevitably reected in the growth of the
intensity of involvement of schoolchildren in the educational process. At the same time, more than half
of teachers (50.9%) felt that the intensity of online learning “depends on the individual characteristics of
children.” Such a high percentage of answers for this position suggests that the effectiveness of learning
activities for some students in online learning is increasing.
We did not nd out the point of view of the parents, because considered that they did not have
expert competence on this issue.
Next, we will connect the issues of quality and intensity of educational activity with motivation itself.
To begin with, we present the results of the simplest (frequent) measurement of the state of motivation in
online learning.
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466
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
Table 4
Distribution of answers to the question: “Have you noticed in yourself (in high school students) a
decrease in motivation for learning when switching to distance learning?”, %
It is easily to see that the positions of high school students and teachers diverge quite strongly.
The most important difference stems from the assessment of the relationship between convenience and
motivation. 46.4% of the surveyed high school students are convinced of the growth or maintenance
of the previous level of motivation, because “homeschooling is convenient”. Only 5.6% of the teachers
surveyed agreed with this judgment. This range of opinions can partly be explained by the fact that the
students spoke about themselves, and the teachers gave an expert assessment. And the answer “some
denitely pretend to study” looked much more attractive. Understanding the risks of underrepresentation,
we added the ability to select two set points to the teacher question variable. However, this did not
increase the popularity of choosing the rst two options. Teachers did not see a signicant relationship
between convenience and increasing motivation.
Equally diametrically different is the position between the two groups of respondents and in the
opposite position, according to which a decrease in motivation is claimed in the conditions of online
learning (fourth line of the table 4). Only 10.1% of the surveyed high school students considered “learning
at home is almost impossible”. Among teachers, such categoricalness was supported by 39.3% of
respondents who chose the option “learning at home leads to partly imitation of learning due to a sharp
decrease in quality”.
If evaluated by the aggregate, the least likely option was “online is very productive” (10.8%) / “high
school students in any form of education understand well why they need knowledge” (11.4%). High school
students and teachers were given markedly different denitions. Pupils were asked about the quality of
online learning, teachers about the presence of certain personality traits in high school students, with
which society associates the onset of social maturity. In fact, teachers spoke about the lack of social
maturity among high school students, and schoolchildren ignored the category of “learning productivity”
as signicant for themselves.
From this position, let’s turn to a meaningful description of the relationship between motivation and
the assessment of the intensity of learning activity in online learning.
We have already measured the linear distribution with respect to the intensity of online learning
(Table 2). Recall that among high school students, three groups of approximately the same size were
distinguished, in which one part of the respondents (32.2%) showed condence in the growth of intensity
in online learning, the second indicated its decrease (30.9%), and the third found it difcult in the choice
of answer (36.9%). Motivation was measured separately from intensity, and slightly more than half of the
total number of students surveyed noted that it did not decrease online (Table 4).
Now we need to use the “intensity” criterion to characterize the degree of involvement in educational
activities of both motivated and demotivated high school students. This will help test the validity of
judgments about their high motivation in online learning environments. This must be done for two reasons.
First, any judgments of schoolchildren should be subjected to critical evaluation. Secondly, the opinions
of high school students and teachers are diametrically opposed. As a test criterion, the questionnaire
included the question “How often did you do extraneous activities during distance lessons?”. Variants of
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Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
the proposed answers for this criterion acts as given values. The answers to the question about motivation
are in the status of the variables that are being measured.
Table 5
Conjugation of answers to the questions: “Have you noticed a decrease in motivation for learning
when switching to distance learning?” and “How often did you do extraneous activities during distance
lessons?”, %
In Table 5 we have four groups of respondents. The rst consists of those who nd it convenient to
study online; the second unites those who chose the option “learning online is very productive”; the third is
formed from respondents who considered that “studying at home is difcult”; the fourth was formed through
the choice of the judgment “learning at home is almost impossible”. The rst two groups can be considered
motivated in terms of online learning, the third is partially motivated and the fourth is demotivated. The
data is contained in four columns. The given values for them are judgments that characterize the intensity
of the educational activity of the degree of readiness of schoolchildren to be included in the educational
process online. The purpose of this conjugation model is to check the reliability of the answers of high
school students in Table 4, which shows that 57.2% (46.4% + 10.8%) of respondents (in the rst two
groups of motivated ones) stated that their motivation in online learning does not decrease.
As a hypothesis, it would be reasonable to assume that the intensity of education in the two
motivated groups will be noticeably higher than in the partially motivated or unmotivated group. In addition,
two groups of motivated schoolchildren should be expected, if not a 100% choice of the given value “I was
not distracted at all, I was constantly included in the educational process”, then at least within the limits
of 60%–70%. However, this hypothesis was only partially conrmed. Yes, indeed, in the two motivated
(in terms of self-presentation) groups, a signicantly smaller part of the respondents were distracted from
the educational process (the rst line of Table 5). But this is not even half of the number of the rst and
second groups. In the rst group, 33.1% chose the option “It is hard to keep attention, but I tried”, and in
the second group even more – 43.5%. 18.4% in the rst group and 16.3% in the second “About half the
time I switched to my own affairs”. 9.1% and 7.6% and even “Most of the time minding my own business”.
Let us calculate, according to the same scheme, according to which the data in Table 3 were
calculated, the percentage of high school students from the total sample, who spent half or more of
their time doing extraneous activities during distance lessons. There are 15% of those in the two groups
of motivated people. To these can be added 20.2% of those who had difculty concentrating in online
classes. We remind that these percentages are not within the group of motivated high school students,
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468
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
but from the general sample. Intragroup distributions can be seen in the Table 5.
These gures show that the high level of motivation among high school students who stated that
they have no problems with motivation in the online learning format does not correspond to the real state
of affairs. Obviously, this means that in the structure of the personality of high school students there are
social qualities that do not contribute to maintaining motivation at a high level in the process of online
learning.
We use one more criterion to test the subjectively presented ability to nd intrinsic motivation in the
conditions of online learning: “What online learning format do you prefer to study in?”. Respondents were
asked to choose three set points: asynchronous, synchronous, and regular school. Objectively, only highly
motivated people can learn effectively in asynchronous mode, because in it a priori there are no external
impulses to motivation. About synchronous online and standard school education, it is unreasonable to
make unambiguous conclusions about motivation on the proposed grounds. Therefore, the unconditional
willingness to go to a distance can be seen only among motivated supporters of online learning.
Table 6
Conjugation of answers to the questions: “Have you noticed a decrease in motivation for learning
when switching to distance learning?” and “What online learning format do you prefer to study in?”, %
Presented in the Table 6 data give us the opportunity to clarify two positions. First, to nd out
if all high school students who nd the online format convenient or productive want to abandon the
standard school education. Secondly, does the awareness of the fact of a decrease in motivation in the
conditions of online learning lead to a negative attitude towards the synchronous or asynchronous format
of educational work.
We are going to answer the rst question rst. Remind that the group of high school students, in
which motivation does not decrease in the conditions of online learning, is divided into two subgroups:
in one group, motivation does not decrease, because online is recognized as convenient; in the second
because of its productivity. It should be recognized that in the rst subgroup (online is convenient),
according to the results of conjugation, 23.1% chose the answer option “It is better to study in a regular
class at school”, and in the second subgroup (online is productive) 43.5%, that is almost half. Such
distributions at least show that the intention to continue the online learning experience, which was stated
by 66.6% of the surveyed high school students (Table 1), does not at all mean their abandonment of the
classroom system. This aspect of the analysis gives us additional information to conclude that the rst
group of motivated is extremely heterogeneous. This was already noticeable from the data included in
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Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
tables 4 and 5. In this group, there is a fairly high percentage of those who are indifferent to both the
intensity and quality of training. Some details on these aspects are given to us by pairing the question
of motivation with the question of preferences for the format of training. Thus, an indicative downward
trend is visible within the “motivated to online learning” group: of those who associate motivation with
convenience, only 23.1% choose the intention to study at a regular school; where staying motivated
online is associated with the “productivity” category, 43.5% of high school students would prefer to study
in a regular school. We also consider it no coincidence that asynchronous learning is most often chosen
by those schoolchildren who are primarily focused on the convenience of the online mode (37.2%). Those
who have not lost motivation in the online format, but who associate it not with convenience, but with the
growth of their own learning productivity, choose asynchronous learning much less often (19.5%). It can be
assumed that such signicant preferences for online convenience and the desire to learn asynchronously,
in fact, reect the goal that is not manifested openly to get out of the control of the teacher in order to
reduce their educational activity.
With regard to the group where motivation in the conditions of online learning is lost or partially lost
(the third and fourth columns in Table 6), everything is very clear. Those who have partially or completely
lost motivation are aimed at studying in a regular class (subgroup “studying at home is difcult” - 76.0%
and subgroup “it is better to study in a regular class at school” - 87.7%). However, in these two subgroups
there is a small part of high school students who, even with motivation lost online, choose synchronous
or asynchronous learning. Our calculations showed that it is 9.1% of the total sample. With a high degree
of probability, we can assume that these are schoolchildren who are not interested in either the quality or
the intensity of learning activities.
A signicant result of the survey was the identication of three groups of high school students: 1)
reducing the performance of online learning and opposing this format; 2) reducing the rates of online
learning and advocating this format; 3) supporters of this format that increase the performance of online
learning. In terms of size, the groups are approximately equal with some preponderance towards the rst
of the three. But these are schoolchildren’s ideas. Let us check them through the expert judgments of
teachers and parents.
Table 7
Distribution of answers to the question: “Are high school students divided into those who are better
off studying remotely and those who are better off studying in the classroom”, %
Teachers, in general, conrmed the presence of the three groups listed above, but the quantitative
distributions turned out to be quite different. Thus, only 5.9% of the surveyed pedagogues indicated that
“all children show the best results in online learning”. At the same time, 43.1% of teachers conrmed that
among high school students there are children who are disabled, homebodies, shy, highly motivated, who
are better off learning in electronic format. And nally, the majority (51%) agreed with the opinion that
“transition to online had a negative impact on the quality of education for all high school students”.
The opinions of teachers are also conrmed by the consolidated point of view of parents.
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470
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
Table 8
Distribution of answers to the question: “When the school worked remotely, did you have conicts
with your child because of study issues?”, %
Almost half of the parents indicated that they had conicts with their children caused by an
insufcient level of motivation to study online. In fact, there could be more of them, but we must take into
account that not all parents have opportunity to control their children due to professional employment. The
percentage received is only little more than what the high school students themselves said, referring to the
decrease in their level of motivation during distance learning.
And nally, the last one. In the emerging discourse, many scientists, teachers and parents share the
opinion that online learning is a modern model of education. Some suggest transferring school education
to electronic format right now. Such projects were actively discussed during the pandemic in the context
of the initiatives of the head of Sberbank, Herman Gref (School, 2019). After the end of the pandemic,
the Internet was lled with advertising messages of various kinds of online schools that operate as an
alternative to the regular high school. The main focus of advertising content unfolds through a description
of the advantages of online education compared to studying in a regular school. This advertisement and
the very functioning of the institution of alternative online learning became possible due to the presence in
the Law on Education of Russia of a legal norm that gives parents the right to transfer their child to family
education (clause 3, part 1, article 17). This construction is used by entrepreneurs in the educational
services market to advertise their activities, without bearing any responsibility for the quality of education,
because. Responsibility shifts entirely to the child’s parents. In this regard, we decided to update and
personalize the problem by formulating the variable in such a way that the respondents (teachers and
parents) answered the question about their readiness to transfer not some abstract (foreign) children, but
their own children to online learning.
Table 9
Distribution of answers to the question: “Would you choose online education for your child instead
of a common school?”, %
The results obtained show that our experts do not accept online learning uncompromisingly. The
percentage of teachers and parents who are ready to choose online education for their high school
students instead of a general education school turned out to be negligible. The experts considered that in
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471
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
the context of distance learning, schoolchildren do not develop intrinsic motivation at the required level,
and the intensity of education and results of educational activities themselves do not meet the established
standards. More or less signicant interest in online learning is associated only with its implementation
in the status of additional education. The data obtained could have been even worse for the supporters
of online education, if some of the answers had not been pulled over by the option “I would choose it as
additional education”, because respondents were given the opportunity to make only two choices of given
values.
Conclusions
The obtained results can be structured according to three main positions: the attitude to online
learning, the perception of one’s own motivation in the conditions of online learning, and the expert
evaluation of the online learning work of high school students by teachers and parents.
Attitude towards online learning. The survey showed that the majority of schoolchildren (66.6%)
are set to repeat the experience of online learning. However, out of this number, 50.0% of respondents
perceive online as a form of education that is convenient for them, and only 16.6% associate it with
an opportunity to improve the quality of education. As for the ability of the online format to support the
intensity of learning activities, in the process of analyzing empirical data, three approximately equivalent
groups were identied: 32.2% solved more learning tasks, 30.9% of respondents managed to complete
a smaller volume, and 36.9% found it difcult to answer. The presence of a large number of set values
who found it difcult to choose indicates the inability of this part of high school students to realize their
own intensity of educational work in online learning, which casts doubt on the educational value of their
choice of distance format. This is especially true in the context of the fact that in this group (36.9% of
those who found it difcult to answer), 46.6% expressed their intention to continue the online learning
experience. The fact that it is not worth taking literally the desire of high school students to study online
without a critical reassessment is also evidenced by the fact that about a third of the students in the group
who positively assessed the experience of distance learning (26% - “online is convenient”; 15% - “online
provides quality”) decided less the volume of educational tasks, which indicates a focus on imitation of
education.
Perception of one’s own motivation in the context of online learning. A direct question to high school
students about the state of their motivation made it possible to single out four groups of respondents:
motivation does not decrease, because learning online is convenient (46.4%); motivation does not
decrease, because study online productively (10.8%); motivation is partially reduced, because studying
at home is difcult (32.7%); motivation is reduced, tk. studying at home is almost impossible (10.1%).
As you can see, 57.2% (46.4% + 10.8%) of high school students did not notice a decrease in motivation
when switching to online learning. However, their chosen setpoints once again showed convenience over
productivity. Convenience, of course, is a signicant condition for increasing motivation in the educational
process, but it can hardly be called decisive. And in this case, it can even act as a factor that reduces the
readiness of high school students for intensive and high-quality education. This hypothesis was tested
with two questions.
The rst question is about the frequency of doing extraneous activities during distance lessons. In
the group of those motivated because of the convenience of online learning, only 35.8% of respondents
were not distracted by extraneous matters, and in the group of those motivated because of online
opportunities to provide productive learning - 31.5%. The conducted pairing showed a low degree of
reliability of the answers of high school students that their motivation does not decrease in the conditions
of online learning.
The second question is about the preferences of the learning format: asynchronous, synchronous
and regular class. This is a criterion in order to identify the relationship between the presence of motivation
in an online environment and the willingness to abandon the traditional class-lesson system. It was found
that in the group motivated because of online convenience, 23.1% want to study in a regular school, and
in the group motivated because of online productivity - 43.5%. This means that even the presence of
motivation in online lessons is not associated with greater productivity of digital education compared to a
traditional school. And, conversely, some high school students from the two groups of partially motivated
and demotivated online choose this particular format of learning. According to our calculations, they make
up 9% of the total sample. Their aim is obvious: to get out of the control of the teacher.
All this conrms the hypothesis that the high motivation declared by high school students for the
online learning process is actually more of an intention which is difcult to implement than a reality. It can be
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472
Dyatlov, V. A., Kovalev, V. V, & Chilingarova, N. D. (2023). Motivation, Intensity and Quality of Educational Activity of Russian
Schoolchildren in Online Learning, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education
(IJCRSEE), 11(3), 461-473.
assumed that such signicant preferences for online convenience and the desire to learn asynchronously,
in fact, reect the goal that is not manifested openly to get out of the control of the teacher in order to
reduce their educational activity. Obviously, this means that in the structure of the personality of high
school students there are social qualities that do not contribute to maintaining motivation at a high level
in the process of online learning.
Expert evaluation of educational work of high school students in online format by teachers and
parents. Teachers (74.7%) and parents (81.8%) reacted negatively to the experience of high school in
online learning, explaining this by the decline in the quality of education and the inconvenience of this
format. Only 7.1% of teachers are convinced that high school students solved more learning problems in
online lessons. 43.6% of pedagogues have encountered an attempt to simulate the learning process by
students, and 39.3% believe that online learning is a complete imitation of the educational process. 51.0%
of teachers believe that the transition to online has had a negative impact on the quality of education for all
high school students. However, 43.1% specify that it is more convenient for some categories of children
(homebodies, disabled, shy, highly motivated) to study remotely. 47.2% of parents came into conict with
their children due to the fact that they were engaged in extraneous activities during the lesson. And nally,
only 5.6% of parents and 8.8% of teachers would like to transfer their children to online education. The
latest data is especially characteristic of pedagogues: 25.3% of them would like to repeat the experience
of online learning at school, but only 8.8% choose it for their own children. This conrms the point of view
of some parents that a number of teachers advocate online learning only for their own convenience.
Based on the analyzed data, three approximately equal groups of respondents can be distinguished.
In the rst group, high school students are focused on the standard school-lesson system with elements of
e-learning. According to our calculations, it consists of 40% of respondents. The second group articulates
the advantages of online learning, which are associated with convenience and greater resource potential
compared to classical learning. It contains about 35% of the respondents. The third group presents the
interests of high school students, for whom, from the point of view of solving educational problems, it is
not so much the format of education that is important, but the opportunity to get out of the control of the
teacher and nd themselves in an educational environment that is convenient for themselves. This group
is formed from 25% of the respondents. The error in calculating the number of groups can be no more
than 3-5%.
The main conclusion: in the presence of a dichotomy between quality and convenience, high school
students choose convenience non-reexively. This means that the online learning format, the usefulness
of which is obvious only if students have a stable cognitive activity, is unacceptable for most high school
students.
Acknowledgements
We thank Professor of the Department of General and Counseling Psychology (Don State Technical
University, Rostov-on-Don), Shcherbakova Tatyana Nikolaevna for her assisstance in conducting the
sociological survey.
Conict of interests
The authors declare no conict of interest.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization – A. V. D. and V. V. K. ; Data curation – D. N. C. ; Formal Analysis – A. V. D. ;
Investigation – A. V. D., V. V. K. and D. N. C.; Methodology – V. V. K.; Project administration – A. V. D.;
Software – A. V. D; Supevision – A. V. D.; Validation – V. V. K., D. N. C.; Visualization – V. V. K. and D. N.
C.; Writing – original draft – A. V. D., V. V. and D. N. C.; Writing – review & editing – A. V. D., V. V. K. and
D. N. C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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