Student Agency in Traditional and Distance Learning from Their Instructors' Perspective

Abstract

Student agency serves as a key factor in student success at university, and a crucial factor in distance learning. The forced transition to teaching with distance educational technologies eased external regulation and showed a picture of student agency. This study aims to describe how instructors assess student agency and how it changes with distance learning. Our study is based on the data from 27 interviews with instructors from 12 Russian leading universities. Interviews were held in two waves: before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we analyze how the learning process is organized usually and in the new conditions, how instructors assess students’ agency in traditional and distance learning, and we also present instructors’ forecast for the future and practices that they plan to continue using when the quarantine is over.