Key Takeaways of eSTARS: Higher Digital Education
Students need digital skills, both in life and in their future work. But many universities are not yet ready to provide students with them, despite the current circumstances in which universities have had to transition to online learning due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The development of online formats has been uneven: there are bright leaders and the rest modestly ‘stand aside’. They lack resources, confidence in digital education, and a regulatory framework. At the eSTARS International Conference organised by HSE University in partnership with Coursera, experts discussed the challenges of digitalisation in higher education.
Home Study or Home Suffering? Lessons of the Pandemic for Primary and Secondary Education
Online learning for schoolchildren — a temporary solution authorities have implemented due to the COVID-19 epidemic — has generated a lot of heated debate. Families worry about the quality and outcomes of online learning, and teachers worry about the excessive workload. School heads have their own headache about how to organise the remote learning. A year has passed since the start of the pandemic, and students have been attending their classes online since March — it is already possible to take stock and look at the situation in a comprehensive and impartial manner, which is what a team of HSE researchers has done. Here are the main results of their study and their proposed solutions to the most pressing problems.
Academic Dishonesty: Fear and Justifications
End-of-term exams have just finished in many universities operating on the modular system. Some students passed because they worked hard while others passed by cheating. Why do some students cheat by looking over someone's shoulder, furtively searching for test answers on the internet, using cheat sheets during exams or paying others to complete their coursework? A study conducted by the HSE Centre for Sociology of Higher Education offers some answers.
A Dossier of Deities: HSE University Scholars Create Electronic Database of Chinese Mythological Characters
The Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies (IOCS) at HSE University is developing an electronic database of Chinese mythological characters and motifs. Because nothing like it has ever been compiled, it meets an enormous demand. Project originators Elizaveta Volchkova, Olga Mazo, Aglaya Starostina and Alevtina Solovyova told IQ what they are attempting to accomplish and why Chinese mythology is both complicated and fascinating.
Spouses’ Common Religion Helps in Intercultural Marriage
When partners are of the same religion, it helps to compensate for any differences in their values, while monocultural couples are more satisfied with their marriage.
'State Owes Me': Social Justice, as Seen by Russian University Undergraduates
'I am the state' ('L'etat c'est moi') is a phrase attributed to French king Louis XIV. For Russian undergraduates today, the motto seems to be 'the state owes me'. According to many of them, the government must support younger people above all else, and this is what they understand by social justice. Read on to learn what else Russian undergraduates think about justice and why they are not willing to make sacrifices to achieve it, based on a paper by HSE political scientists Valeria Kasamara, Marina Maximenkova and Anna Sorokina.
For Scholastic Success, Support Is Better than Control
While 9th-graders and 11th-graders are busy respectively preparing for the Basic State Exam (BSE) and Unified State Exam (U.S.E.), their parents are the ones who lay the groundwork for their success. However, if parental assistance turns into pressure, it can produce the opposite effect on young people, HSE University researchers note. Here, we look at how parents can help their children do well on the Unified State Exam.
HSE Faculty of Chemistry Scientists Discover New Anti-cancer Molecule
A group of Moscow scientists has discovered and explained the activity mechanism of a new anti-cancer molecule — diphenylisoxazole. This molecule has been shown to be effective against human cancer cells. The research, published in the journal Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, makes it possible to produce an affordable cancer treatment drug.
Artificial Intelligence Can Now Predict Students’ Educational Outcomes Based on Their VK Posts and Tweets
The new model, created by computational social scientist Ivan Smirnov of HSE University, predicts the academic success of Russian high school students with an accuracy of 94%. The model generates its predictions based on users’ distinctive vocabulary and speech patterns, and the predictions have strongly correlated with students’ Unified State Exam (USE) scores.
Gender Asymmetry Affects Labour Market
According to Natalia Tikhonova, a social scientist with HSE University, gender asymmetry has been on the rise in Russia's labour market over the past 20 years. Gender asymmetry is reflected in the ‘feminisation’ of white-collar jobs and a disproportionate number of men among blue-collar workers. In addition to this, increasing automation in traditionally male industrial sectors is leading to fewer jobs available to men. In contrast, occupations with a growing demand for skills tend to be those which are mainly filled by women.