Remote Learning Versus Traditional Learning: Attitudes of University Students

Abstract

The years 2020 and 2021 brought new challenges to teaching and learning in the institutions of tertiary education due to the global COVID-19 Pandemic. They have been the devastating years for many teachers. Innumerable difficulties in professional and personal life increased the stress - striving to survive with the least losses. Temporary measures for remote teaching/learning in spring of 2020 extended until summer of 2021 worldwide and seem unlikely to stop in the nearest future. New challenge of novel online activities made teachers reconsider their teaching philosophy due to an overall lack of students engagement in spite of the usual and familiar learning procedures. The current crisis outlines the following framework to teaching philosophy: capability, reliability, inability, suitability, ingenuity, and sustainability. This article aims at researching University students attitudes to remote and traditional learning of English for Specific Purposes. A specially designed survey was administered to 180 full-time students (9 groups, 20 students in each group). Their responses were statistically processed by a means of the SPSS software to compute the Means and Standard Variations and compare the estimates of the between-group and within-group variances. Statistical processing of multiple samples reveals whether observed differences in responses occur at random, i. e. are due to chance, or they are significant, real and meaningful. The scientific analysis of computation data might allow drawing conclusions about students preferences: which mode of learning - remote or traditional - is beneficial and how much is each of them supportive.