Manifestation of Information Stress Among Students in a Situation of Transition to Distance Learning During the Spread of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study was carried out in line with the cognitive theory of stress, which actualizes the importance of emotional reactions in the dynamics of stress and its stress-damaging effect. The results of an initiative survey of students of six Russian universities, dedicated to the attitude of students to the massive transition to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, are presented. Analysis of the data obtained shows that the respondents have signs of information stress in connection with the introduction of distance learning in the first wave of the pandemic. During the survey, students ascertain in themselves subjectively experienced negative emotional states of anxiety, dissatisfaction, uncertainty, and anxiety. Experiences are determined by the need for quick inclusion in new educational conditions, increasing demands and volumes of workload, restructuring of the usual academic actions, accelerated mastering of distance technologies, which they did not quite confidently possess before. Empirically substantiated the importance of providing psychological assistance to participants in the educational process experiencing personal and intellectual difficulties during a pandemic.

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