Time attitudes and life satisfaction among university students in a mixed educational environment

ABSTRACT

The article describes the trends of modern Russian education, analyzes the changes that have taken place in the educational settings of modern students. An empirical study was carried out, the purpose of which was to identify and compare changes in time attitudes and subjective indicators of the quality of life among students during the forced transition to a distance (online) learning model in the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic and when studying in a mixed model during the post-pandemic period. The authors present the results of a comparative study of the relationship between time settings and life satisfaction among students during the COVID-19 pandemic (when they were forced to study only in the distance version November - December 2021) and post-pandemic (when learning is carried out in a mixed model September - October 2022). A study conducted by a cross-sectional method on a random sample of university students showed the stability of indicators over time in terms of subjective assessments of the quality of life and the level of anxiety, attitudes to time both during the period of forced online learning and during the transition to a blended learning model. An analysis of life satisfaction indicators for two sections showed that in both cases the value is higher than the normative ones, while there is an increase in the level of life satisfaction from the first section to the second at the trend level. In the structure of time attitudes, the attitude towards the future is of the greatest importance. In relation to him, students have a cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, it is perceived as filled with active actions (i. e., subjective), and on the other hand, the attitude towards the future and all life tasks associated with this negatively affect dissatisfaction with life in the present. Students experience difficulties with the realization of the need for autonomy - the desire to independently control their own actions and behavior, to be their independent initiator, the desire to feel the choice and their own determination of behavior. The predictors of life satisfaction among students during the post-pandemic period are connectedness as a basic psychological need, attitudes towards the past, present and future. At the same time, the "attitude towards the future" indicator has a negative coefficient. In general, the educational space is perceived by students positively and does not cause anxiety. The difficult situation of a forced change in educational approaches did not cause negative consequences and rejection among students. And although at the initial stages, a certain part of teachers and students experienced stress reactions, over time, most of the respondents formed a rather positive attitude towards the change in the educational environment. According to the authors, the opportunities that open up as a result of the introduction of a mixed educational environment outweigh the problems that have arisen.