Pedagogical university students' satisfaction with preparation for interaction in educational activities in a digital society

Abstract

Current conditions of increasing conflict and uncertainty point out the guidelines for the change of education correlated with the model of “knowledge society” and the goals of sustainable development in a digital society. These guidelines actualize the involvement of all citizens and institutions in the process of lifelong education and upbringing. These two notions as factors of national security require the readiness of future teachers and specialists in the social sphere to build constructive interaction with a wide range of participants in various realms. The transformation of professional training should be carried out considering the attitude to it of students themselves. The article conveys the results of a study of the pedagogical university students' satisfaction with the preparation for educational activities interaction under digitalization conditions. During the survey 446 third- to fifth-year students were interviewed, two groups of students were compared: future teachers (teachers of various subjects), future social sphere specialists (students majoring in social work, psychological and pedagogical education, vocational training, special (defectological) education, and management). The results of the study provided us with the structure of students' satisfaction with educational activities preparation that includes three factors: personal satisfaction, interactive satisfaction and satisfaction with theoretical and practical training. Overall, students have an average level of satisfaction with training in general, while they are relatively less satisfied with the interactive factor. The outcomes of the study established the following difference: future subject teachers are less satisfied with their preparation for interaction in the educational process than future specialists in the social sphere. The use of information technologies by students in educational activities correlates with the level of satisfaction concerning all three factors. Still, the strongest connection is revealed within interaction satisfaction. The results of the research allow us to empirically confirm the structure of the previously developed model of proactive preparation for educational activities and make relevant adjustments: (1) clarify the composition of subsystems (subject-environment, content, process); (2) update networking (expanding the range and productivity of interaction during the training period); (3) enhance the content of subsystems by including up-to-date information and communication technologies to organize students' training in the context of digitalization.