Teachers on the Move: Understanding the New Model of Virtual Mobility Through the Case Study of a Russian University

Abstract

Virtual mobility has emerged as a new tool for the internationalization of higher education with the advent of information and communication technology in the current scenario. With the outbreak of COVID-19, the landscape of global higher education has altered significantly. In that situation, when physical academic mobility became impossible, the Higher School of Economics, one of the leading universities in Russia, ran a unique digital internship programme for teaching staff from regional universities. In the logic of the digital identity model and push–pull model, the present research has analysed the profiles and motivation letters of 398 teachers from 73 Russian universities which took part in 15 internship programmes since March 2020. The present study fills a gap in the literature by examining how motivation and reasons for participation in virtual mobility may trigger the reduction of inequality in higher education. The findings of the present study revealed that the main reasons highlighted by the teachers for taking part in virtual internship programmes are mostly external and connected with the current tasks imposed by the Ministry of Higher Education and University management. Internal reasons are true mostly for teaching track when teachers are the agents of creating modern pedagogical methods for their courses. Thus, university teaching staff do not feel themselves as the drivers of change. The environment at the higher education level is not ready yet for significant changes.