DISTANCE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AT THE UNIVERSITY: ADVANTAGES, PROBLEMS AND OPINIONS OF STUDENTS

In the context of digitalization of all spheres of everyday, industrial and public life, higher and secondary vocational education have the opportunity to move to a new level using modern information and communication technologies and involve the largest possible student audience into the learning process. Experience in the field of distance learning over the past decades shows that this form of educational process organization has a number of advantages over traditional forms of training. Among these advantages are democracy, lower cost of training, the opportunity to participate in the educational process in conditions of territorial separation, combining training with other types of activities, etc. At the same time, in the process of distance learning, the teacher and students also face a number of problems associated with the lack of the possibility of personal and emotional non-verbal contacts, when communication "person-person" is replaced by communication "person-computer". In the context of the forced transition of all higher educational institutions of the Russian Federation to distance learning due to a difficult epidemic situation, it became possible to assess the advantages and disadvantages of this form of training from the point of view of full-time students who had no previous experience of on-line education. A comparative analysis of the opinions of first-year students of the Ural State University of Economics and the college of this university shows that the respondents named the main advantages of distance learning a greater freedom in conducting classes in the absence of constant control and the possibility of combining education with other activities. The main disadvantages are the lack of feedback from the teacher due to distancing, as well as technical problems. The lack of emotional contact with educators was found to be a more serious problem for college students than for university students. It can be concluded that distance learning is more in line with the needs and capabilities of adult learners, and specific forms of organizing classes need to be adapted to the conditions of a specific audience.