Digital interactive information technologies in political education and civic participation of students of Chinese universities

The purpose of this article is to study the impact of the use of digital interactive information technologies in Chinese political education on the civic participation of Chinese and foreign students. The study involved 347 Chinese and 298 foreign students China University of Political Science and Law University, School of Marxism (Shanghai); East China University of Political Science and Law (Shanghai); China Youth University of Political Studies (Beijing), who studied using digital interactive information technologies (experimental group 2); the control group consisted of 285 Chinese and foreign students who, during the experiment, studied political disciplines without the use of digital interactive information technologies. To investigate the students’ civic participation, the authors used a special semi-structured questionnaire, as well as the method “Diagnostics of the socio-psychological attitudes of a person in the motivational-need sphere” by O. Potemkina and the method “Motivation of professional activity” by K. Zamfir modified by A. A. Rean. Both Chinese and foreign students who received political education using digital interactive information technologies during the experiment turned out to be significantly more active in civilian life than those who studied without using these technologies.