The Changing Attitudes Towards Distance Learning: The New Demand for the Format by the Faculty

The article presents an analysis of the results of the monitoring of faculty’s attitudes towards the digitalization of education conducted by the INSAP Center of IPEI RANEPA since 2020. Three consecutive waves of the survey (2022, 2023, and 2024) have revealed a stable faculty group (representing more than a third of respondents) who express a lack of experience with distance learning. The stability of these observations is supported by the significant sample size of over 16,000 participants, which suggests a new trend in the field: after initial resistance to digitalization due to COVID-19-related restrictions, there has been an increasing interest in distance learning within higher education. The seventh monitoring wave, conducted in May 2024, revealed that approximately one third of teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the inadequate volume of distance learning opportunities. This underscores the significance of digital tools in their daily work and the necessity to further investigate and support the process of digitalizing education. The article also discusses the challenges associated with the digitalization process, including the lack of coherent administrative solutions, which hinders the transformation. Without external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of teachers utilizing the online environment has continued to decrease. However, there has been a shift in attitudes towards distance learning, and faculty are beginning to recognize the need for institutional support. A faculty group interested in remote forms of work can become digitalization ambassadors in Russian universities, opening up new perspectives for the educational process.