STAVOVI STUDENATA ODSJEKA ZA ANGLISTIKU FILOZOFSKOG FAKULTETA UNIVERZITETA U SARAJEVU / ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES

Abstract

In the present paper, the authors analyse attitudes of students (N=91) studying at the Department of English Language and Literature toward distance learning launched at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The study is designed as action research containing elements of both qualitative and quantitative research. The key instrument for collecting data was a survey designed by the authors of the present paper. The Google Forms survey was delivered to 1st-5th year students at the Department of English Language and Literature by e-mail. The collected data were processed by means of SPSS software (descriptive statistics). Results of the analysis show that students do not consider “distance learning’’ to be of better quality when compared to “learning in the classroom’’ but also that students, in the period of returning to a “new normal’’, openly express their preference for blended learning. At the same time, results of the analysis reveal that it is necessary to modernise teaching practices by means of introducing a more representative version of the distance learning system that would not only significantly improve the quality of the teaching practices, but also assist in maintaining competitiveness of the Faculty of Philosophy as a higher education institution.