Russian Students’ Ideas About the Quality of Life: Transformation Under the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The paper views change in Russian university students’ ideas about the quality of life during the pandemic. This empirical longitudinal study involved 107 first-year students of Kemerovo State University. To identify their ideas about the quality of life, R. S. Eliot’s Quality of Life Index was used in the Russian language adaptation by N. E. Vodopyanova. The students were surveyed at the beginning of the online learning mode (April 2020), after 8 months of online classes, and upon switching back from online learning (September 2021). The initial sampling demonstrated the students’ average extent of satisfaction with their quality of life during the lockdown. Among the problems they reported a poor ability to organize their own time, to act in difficult and changing circumstances, to control emotions. The students’ satisfaction with personal relations and studies, in general, remained high. In the autumn of 2020, a significant decrease in most indicators under study was found in the surveyed group. In September 2021, the students showed positive trends in the parameters in question.