Psychological factors of online-learning efficiency of students

Abstract

The spread of e-learning in high education stimulates investigation of psychological characteristics of successful students of online courses. The aim of our paper was to find psychological predictors of the effectiveness of online learning. The sample consisted of 215 students of the Ural Federal University. The personal sphere of students was studied with the help of personality questionnaire Big Five (R. McCrae and P. Costa); diagnosis of students' educational activity motives (T. O. Gordeeva, E. N. Osin, O. A. Sychev); diagnosis of the dominant perceptual modality (S. Efremtseva); scale of progressive matrices by J. Raven (diagnosis of the level of intelligence based on the evaluation of the effectiveness of non-verbal tasks). The results of the respondents expressed attitude to e-learning and their final scores of online courses have been processed with help of factual analysis. We have found that the main personal characteristics of successful online-students are their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and level of intelligence, such personal qualities as goodwill and openness to new experience, moreover, the length of study at university and online courses is also important. The results show that one of the most difficult area of online courses is the evaluation of learning outcomes. The recognition of individual psychological characteristics of more and less successful MOOC-students are important information for creators and university teachers working in this format. This data gives understanding how to make the situation of e-learning success and realize the ideas of adaptive learning.