Perspectives Of Educational Psychology Distance Course For Pre-Service English Teachers

Distance form of education for adult learners

Distance learning first appeared as a correspondence course at the beginning of the 19^th century and provided many with the opportunity to participate in the educational process (Albrechtsen, Mariger, & Parker, 2001). Later, distance learning acquired richer technical possibilities with the rise of video-conferencing, the internet and the satellite (Salimi, 2007).

At present, it significantly impacts on the organisation of the whole educational process, especially in the light of adult education. Recent surveys conducted on adult education and aspects that needed to be taken into consideration while constructing a distance educative environment (Bozkurt et al., 2015; Cleveland-Innes & Garrison, 2010; Moore & Kearsley, 2012; Muilenburg & Berge, 2001) revealed that more and more adults prefer distance learning to face-to-face education as it implies the choice of place and studies.

In the case of this study, the decision to choose distance learning has been justified by several reasons. The first one is most of the pre-service teachers doing this course were not citizens of Moscow or lived in the Moscow Region. Hence, they would have to spend several hours to get to the University. Another reason was related to the work schedule of the students, as many students finished their work late in the evening depending on their schedule. Thus, the possibility of watching recordings of webinars and doing their homework at any time was of great value and importance for such students. Therefore, it is relevant to notice that the distance learning version course was one of the strongest benefits for our up-and-coming English teachers.

The need to understand Educational Psychology for pre-service English teachers

According to Vygotsky (1997) knowledge of Educational Psychology allows for a better understanding of the process of perceiving knowledge and forming skills as well as to organise the learning process properly.

So, in terms of professional retraining, this distance learning course was specially designed for adults with pedagogical education (not as English teachers) but who want to be English teachers. The course was elaborated by the teachers at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, at the faculty of foreign languages and area studies. In this course, pre-service teachers acquire first the theoretical basis of teaching and then turn to practice. Thus, they study such disciplines as Pedagogy and Educational Psychology during the first term of the academic year. The inclusion of Educational Psychology into basic pedagogical education is explained by the necessity to know and understand psychological process of forming and developing learning skills, in this case, to know how to effectively develop skills in reading, listening, speaking and writing among students of different ages or how to deal with lack in motivation during the lessons. As a result, head teachers decided to include this discipline in the course.

The content of the course

The first research question dwells upon the content of the distance learning course for Educational Psychology which helps to define the real need of teachers in psychological knowledge.

The subject of Educational Psychology comprises several divisions of Psychology such as the Basics of Educational Psychology, General Psychology, Personality Psychology, Psychology of learning and educating, and Psychology of teacher’s activity.

The after-course survey contained a question about the divisions that students preferred. It should be noted that the respondents had the option of choosing more than one answer for this question. According to the results, the vast majority of pre-service teachers were in favour of the following division of content for the distance learning course for Educational Psychology subject. Figure 01 shows that basics of General and Personality Psychology and Psychology of Learning and Educating are the most preferred content followed by Basics of Teacher’s Psychology. The least favoured was Basics of Educational Psychology.

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Proper conditions of the course realization

One more question is aimed particularly at the form of the teaching process. We should understand the suitable conditions for our students to start and continue up to the end the educational process. According to Salisbury, Pearson, Miller, and Marett (2002), interaction with groupmates and a teacher could easily be the key points of a successful distance course. It is vitally important to find the answer to the proper conditions of the course implementation in order to properly organize the course for optimal benefit for the students.

Another interesting ratio of answers was found in the light of the following question:

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This shows that more than a half of the students preferred (depending on circumstances) to study with the help of recordings than be present on-line.

In addition, we asked our students about some challenges that they experienced during the distance learning course. The following emerged: shortage in discussions with groupmates (20%) and shortage in discussing problems with the teachers (19%). These results show that these are main areas that need to be addressed in order to improve the course.

In general, the findings show that distance learning course for the Educational Psychology subject for pre-service English teachers at the Lomonosov Moscow State University can be considered effective, in particular for those who reside far away from the university (49%). In general, more than 73% of the learners study via distance learning. Furthermore, at the end of the course, 91% of students passed it successfully.