Why is Distance Learning Not Always Effective?

The Internet is now available to almost everyone. This means that any information, knowledge, and editing services have also become readily available. It would seem – what opportunities for self-education! With the help of distance learning, you can get an education in Western universities without leaving your country or even leaving your apartment. Or, at a minimum, you can take online courses on specific topics. Moreover, video tutorials are now available not only for adults but also for children of any age.

Distance Education

In addition, in recent years, the topic of completely switching to distance education has been increasingly raised. The desire of young people to transfer classes and auditoriums to the monitor is supported by some of the older generations, among whom there are even the luminaries of modern pedagogy.

Should a toddler, who cannot speak properly, but already know the basics of the PC enough to “turn on” his favorite game or cartoon, in the desire to fall asleep with a tablet in his hands? Why do thousands of schoolchildren of the last decade have difficulty in mastering speech skills or, worse, explain themselves with a set of vulgarisms, mixed with distorted foreign words? Why do students, having received a “brilliant” education in prestigious universities, sometimes in another hemisphere, and without looking up from the sofa, do not work in their specialty.


Finding answers to these questions is very difficult. It is much easier to answer the question of why distance learning (including with the help of video courses) is not always effective.

Motivation as the Basis for Successful Distance Learning

Some teachers, supporting the idea of ​​computerization of education, motivate their point of view with the benefits that virtual learning brings, which protects students from stress during exams, the comfort of home learning conditions, and savings on budgetary funds for the maintenance of educational institutions.

A comfortable environment and the desire to obtain material wealth with minimal effort contradict the law of dialectics. Here’s something to think about. And it is not necessary to deprive people of opportunities for personal contact of experiences because of failures, jubilation in case of natural success.

Objective and Subjective Control of the Educational Process

Many parents have faced such problems at least once:

  • The child does not want to go to school
  • After school, he is in no hurry to start doing his homework, and it is impossible to tear him away from his favorite video game, communication on social networks, and so on.
  • The teacher complains about the student’s inattention during the lesson or about the fact that he is trying to cheat on the test from a classmate

The same can be said about both students and adults who voluntarily and independently made a decision to receive additional education. There are many objective and subjective reasons for such behavior, which reduces the quality of assimilation of educational material, but we are not talking about them.

Now let’s try to imagine the student’s behavior when the teacher presents the material while in the “virtual looking glass”, and the student himself subjectively cannot tune in to assimilate new material. It seems to him that he is attentively listening to the lecture, chewing on a sandwich, or talking on the phone. It is not hard to guess what the effectiveness of such listening to a video course is. Unfortunately, not all people have developed the ability for absolute self-control, introspection, and concentration. Of course, when students are faced with more complex tasks, paper editing services come to the rescue.

Note that, being in the classroom or in the classroom, the same pupils or students are unlikely to allow themselves such behavior in the presence of a teacher and classmates/fellow students. In addition, the collective learning process consists of such positive aspects as, for example, the spirit of competition, when each student can independently compare their academic success with the achievements of a group like him. In this case, there are more chances for self-mobilization and striving for success.

It is difficult to name all the psychological aspects that create obstacles to virtual learning using video courses within the framework of a short article, but what has been said is already enough to conclude the influence of personal factors on the effectiveness of distance learning.