Russian Master's Early Growth: Results of the All-Russian Study
March 25, 2021
08.04.2021 13:00 - Colloquium
Garmonova Anna Vladimirovna, head of the project "Russian Master's Early Growth", director of the university partnership center of the National Research University "Higher School of Economics", PhD in political sciences
Opfer Evgeniya Anatolyevna, researcher at the Institute of Education NRU HSE, PhD in pedagogical sciences
Daria Shcheglova, researcher at the Institute of Education NRU HSE, PhD in political sciences
The research "Russian Master's Early Growth" was conducted in 2018-2020 by the Institute of Education, HSE with the support of the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation. The goal was to analyze the effects of the formation and development of a Master’s program in Russia, to develop proposals for shaping a policy in the development of two-stage higher education. From 19 Russian universities, 1140 graduate students, 700 teachers, and 3500 undergraduate students were interviewed.
The study showed that Russian master's programs are more focused on the formation of academic competencies, while only 14.9% of graduates plan to link their careers with the academic or scientific field. At the same time, students lack universal digital competencies, and they do not expect that the master's degree will form them. This is partly due to the reluctance of teachers to work with digital competencies. Thus, on the eve of the pandemic, more than half of the master’s program teachers did not use modern technologies in their professional activities, and a quarter were not ready for remote work.
In addition, a contradiction was revealed in the preferences of undergraduates and teachers regarding study and work in the master’s program:
- undergraduates prefer practice-oriented programs and want to get relevant digital competencies demanded by employers;
- teachers prefer to work in an academic master's program and are often not ready for new formats.
At the same time, administrators are focused on fulfilling formal indicators - compliance with the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard and performance indicators, which do not always correspond to the actual requirements of both the undergraduates themselves and the labor market.