MOTIVATIVE POTENTIAL OF A TEENAGEER DURING DISTANCE LEARNING
Authors: Svatenkova T. 
Published: December 2021

Given that almost all children in the world spent some time in solitary confinement last year, a new UNICEF analysis based on the Oxford University project to track government action in response to the spread of COVID-19 (COVID-19 Government Response Tracker), allows to detect some of the longest isolation modes in the world. 139 million children worldwide, including children living in countries such as Paraguay, Peru and Nigeria, have been required to comply with mandatory national isolation regulations for at least nine months from 11 March 2020, when COVID -19 was identified as a pandemic. This meant that they mostly had to stay at home. Another 193 million children lived under the recommended national isolation regimes during the same period.

The article reveals the peculiarities of the psychosocial situation in the adolescents` development in the pandemic crisis context and the reasonably acute need to study its impact on the spheres of an individual`s life at this age stage: emotional, motivational, behavioral, interpersonal communication, physical condition. The article`s purpose is to reveal the features of the psychosocial situation influence on the motivational potential of a teenager. The state of the problem on an international scale is analyzed. The role and place of the motivational component in the structure of a teenager’s potential have been determined. A detailed study was carried out using the methodology of V.E. Milman “Studying the motivational sphere of personality”, parents and teachers` questionnaires, a comparative children progress analysis before and during distance learning. The influence factors on the motivation of a teenager and the sphere that have undergone the greatest changes in the situation of the pandemic crisis in Ukraine are revealed. The study involved 360 people aged 14-17, 10 different schools in Central, Northern and Western Ukraine, 387 parents of the respective children and 120 teachers of the respective schools. The survey was voluntary, anonymous and using Google form tools.

We used to think that adolescents have a high behavioral ability. The nervous processes speed and constant communication help them to quickly adapt to new environmental conditions. They have a high psychological potential compared to adults. But the pandemic situation and numerous studies have shown that the potential is not sufficiently addressed. Many adolescents have experienced quarantine restrictions and distance learning. During a pandemic, children are considered potential virus carriers, and for parents they are often the reason for working from home. However, children suffer the most from quarantine psychologically, because their lives have completely changed. The mental load for all family members is extremely high, but above all — for children. All these and many other factors have created a dangerous social psychosocial deprivation situation for children, where mental health, social adaptation, development and the child’s personality psychological potential realization are endangered.

The emotional and motivational profiles of the personality in the adolescent’s motivational potential structure are characterized. The relationship between the development of the teenager`s psychological potential andthepsychosocialsituationisshown, inparticular theimportanceofschoolattendancebychildren. Thefeatures of changes in the emotional, motivational, behavioral spheres, in the sphere of interpersonal communication, physical condition are revealed. A decrease in motivation for learning activity, a decrease in contacts with others, an infantilism of behavior is noted, indicating the spread of depressive and crisis states among adolescents. The essence of the psychological potential of a teenager has been determined. The motivational potential of adolescents in educational activity is characterized as basic in the structure of the psychological potential of the personality, the motivational and emotional profiles of the adolescent’s personality are diagnosed. The dependence of the development of the motivational potential of adolescents in educational activities on the characteristics of the psychosocial situation associated with quarantine measures has been proved.

The pandemic and quarantine have shaken the basic security sense, because we have to deal with a new situation that is uncontrollable. Due to age, adolescents are more vulnerable and sensitive to such challenges than adults. Therefore, it is important how adults react to quarantine, how they cope with the situation. Adolescents and parents are very interdependent. Adolescents also feel confused in this situation, may feel aggression.

In addition, adolescents need their own world, where there is communication with peers, games, their own rules, trends. Game is one of the ways to cope with stress, to work out complex experiences. It is difficult to be fully in this world in long-term isolation, although it is necessary.

When an adolescent is in school live or attends a group, he feels the framework and rules that help him adjust to the learning process, to organize himself. When learning is online, the holistic perception of the situation is lost, it becomes fragmentary. After all, an adolescent not only perceives and remembers information and reproduces it, he lives and feels it. The online format does not allow for this and the knowledge is not so well remembered.

Distance learning cannot give a sense of cohesion, and for adolescents a belonging to a group sense is important. Adolescents go to school not only to learn — they also communicate, interact with others, face difficulties and challenges. They acquire social competencies with other adolescents. This is an important experience that occurs between lessons in different types of educational activities.

The study results showed that prolonged psychosocial deprivation together with the state level threat has a negative impact on adolescent`s important areas development, namely:

anxiety, fear feelings, aggression, depression is dominated in the emotional sphere;
despite some improvement in family relations, in the behavioral sphere widespread infantilism, dependence, unwillingness to develop;
motivation to learn is reduced, there is mostly indifference, motivation to avoid failure, educational selectivity;
personality structure motivational profile has a pronounced regressive tendency coupled with impulsivity;
the personality`s emotional profile showed the emotional asthenic type predominance and frustrating
Social, emotional intelligence is needed for adolescent’s development. Prolonged quarantine and isolation take up space for the development, these skills` maintenance and training. This is, for example, the ability to ask for help or provide it to those who need it. It is formed in a live relationship, not online. Therefore, long-term isolation can affect the adolescents’ construction the model of relationships with society in later adult life.