Multitrack Educational Programs as a Method of Educational Process Personalization at Universities

Abstract

This study analyzes the approach towards educational process organization at a university. We study existing practices of educational program personalization (and the relevant existing limitations) in the Russian system of university-level education. This study reviewed the general trends in university program personalization and performed an in-depth analysis of actual cases of personalized study plan implementation at Russian universities (we compared the declared objectives of such programs with their real-life implementation results). In this article, the authors also highlight the limitations affecting the maximum attainable level of personalization of study programs (such as the minimum number of students enrolled in a course in a given semester, problems of resource reallocation between different chairs at the university and administration costs of digitalization of a personalized study process). Based on our research, a model of study process organization (based on multitrack educational programs) has been developed and implemented. The article describes an algorithm for implementation of multitrack educational programs, highlights the limitations that this model of educational process complies with and formulates the advantages of this approach towards organization of the university-level study process compared to models employing individual educational trajectories.