Quality concept, due to its multifaceted and polyfunctional nature, is in use in different areas. The term started its way in the field of higher education in 1980s, but numerous discussions on how to define it have been ongoing ever since. Considering rapid growth of online practices in universities and the fact that there is still no conventional system of quality assurance and evaluation for online mode, the aforementioned problems are becoming even more topical. In the article with an aim to grasp meaning of quality online, its theoretical and practical levels are correlated. Papers summarizing traditional approaches to rethinking quality concept in higher education and tools of practical work with quality in online and offline modes are selected as a basis for analysis. A transition from dissipated definitions into the systems of their aggregation is traced. Elements of quality understanding in offline mode potentially applicable to online are identified. The main differences between categories of quality assurance in online and offline are outlined, along with the mechanisms of their portability from one mode to another. Basing on the analysis conducted, an approach of working with quality of university online programmes synchronizing theoretical and practical levels is offered. This paper may be of interest for researchers in the field of higher education and university managers, whose interests concern questions of internal quality assurance and quality culture.

The involvement of parents in the education of their children-students is a growing trend, linked to later socialisation. However, the question of how parents demonstrate their involvement at the university level is not well researched. This paper aims to identify the types of parental involvement in the education of university students and describe their distinctive features. The article presents the results of an empirical study on parental involvement in the educational process of university students. Based on cluster analysis of survey data from first-year students at nine Russian universities across different regions of the country (N = 5012), three types of parental involvement were identified: ‘restless’, ‘liberal’, and ‘passive’. ‘Restless’ parents are characterised by a higher level of control, monitoring academic performance and attendance. Parents who are considered ‘liberal’ tend to give their children more autonomy and take an active interest in their achievements and problems at university. On the other hand, ‘passive’ parents are not involved in the educational process at university. The study analysed the types of parental involvement based on family characteristics, experience of school graduation, and university enrolment.

The study aims to compare patriotic attitudes among the social group of student youth, as reflected in public opinion dynamics and social media information flows. The research methodology was based on cognitive and network approaches to examining social processes. The methods of open sociological and statistical data analysis, cognitive content mapping and automated social media analysis were used to determine the content and intensity of the impact of opposing patriotic and anti-patriotic information flows in the Russian segment of social media on the social values and attitudes of student youth. The results of the study revealed a high intensity of information pressure of anti-patriotic information flow in the digital communications environment on the audience of student youth. The sociological data indicates a strong prevalence of patriotic attitudes among the youth, however, analysis of information flows reveals the widespread presence of anti-patriotic narratives and discourses on social networks. The student communities of supporters of the patriotic idea differ from the opponents in that they are much more numerous, but much less active in producing and promoting semantic content in the social media space. The social media segment in Russia lacks a well-developed network infrastructure, including opinion leaders and effective platforms for broadcasting patriotic content. The empirical study of information flows has shown that universities are not on the list of platforms for promoting the patriotic agenda. Russian universities face a significant challenge in implementing patriotic education for the youth due to their technological and ideological detachment from students who are immersed in the digital communication environment. These circumstances reveal institutional issues with implementing the state policy of youth development in the face of existential challenges.

The research aim is to evaluate the changes in Kazakhstan policy of higher education internationalisation due to the international relations transformation since February 2022. The research tasks are to identify the peculiarities of higher education internationalisation in Kazakhstan and to detect its main trends before and after 2022. Based on the definitions of higher education internationalisation formulated by J. Knight, P.G. Altbach et al., authors outline relatively successful attempts of Kazakhstan to follow world trends in higher education. However, research literature analysis suggests that there are still many problems in Kazakhstan higher education the Government is still unable to overcome due to the lack of resources.
The authors confidently analyse the legal framework of higher education reform in Kazakhstan and decisively use event-analysis to identify the key characteristics of higher education internationalisation in Kazakhstan since its independence, during 1991-2023. The conclusion was that the country has been on a course of internationalisation since the 1990s, but that until 2010 it had been a point-by-point process. At the same time, a model of importing higher education services, mainly from Russia, was spontaneously formed. Since 2010, the second stage of internationalisation has begun, characterised by a large borrowing of Western models and practices, although the Western direction of interaction in higher education complemented, but did not replace, the Russian one. In 2022, Kazakhstan made an accelerated transition to the third stage of internationalisation of higher education, characterised by distancing itself from Russia, combining imports and ambitions to export higher education, and increasing competition with Russia for applicants.

The future engineers training system should include a special target function of professionally significant qualities developing, which are necessary along with professional competencies, both for work in the chosen field of activity and for further career growth. The professional education often turns out to be formal, and the training of engineers is not effective enough, without clear goals.
The purposes of the article are the importance substantiate of the future engineers professional upbringing, to identify the organization problems at the professionally significant qualities formation and to determine their resolution conditions for the engineering education system. The work examines research questions: what does professional upbringing to engineering education contribute, what professionally significant qualities complement the knowledge component in the competencies of future engineers.
Materials and methods. The article provides an overview of scientific research and the state of the professional upbringing of future engineers issue. The theoretical basis of the study is the decomposition and isolation of the engineering education system important component – the education of professionally significant qualities with its special meaning and functionality.
Results and conclusions. Discipline, responsibility, independence and self-organization can be considered as professionally significant personality traits of a future engineer, including those that determine his uniqueness in the profession. The most important tasks of professional education are assessing the feasibility of professional activity certain aspects for a student, determining and setting his priorities, and developing his dominant professionally significant qualities. Training a competitive specialist is possible only in a competitive environment. It is proposed to use team management as a mechanism for a competitive environment implementing, and an option for the evaluative-effective component of the education system implementing as an element of this environment is shown. It is noted that the dominant relationships in education can be supplemented by the dominant awareness and relationships in the information space, for example, at the digital educational cluster. The formation of professionally significant qualities in the engineering education system can be allocated into a separate work plan of a unified work upbringing program or of a separate professional training program.

The article analyzes the influence of training based on combined (combining asynchronous and synchronous forms in one pedagogical technology) online discussions (OD) on the formation of reflexion of future engineers. The relevance of the problem is revealed. It is conditioned by toughening requirements to reflexive abilities and network communicative competences of modern technical specialists in the conditions of digitalization of education, networking and socio-technical transformation of engineering activity. The algorithm of realization and stage-role structure of asynchronous and synchronous OD are presented. The four-stage technology of pedagogical application of combined OD combining online-discussions with face-to-face reflexive classes is described, taking into account the mediated nature of learning in the digital environment and psychological features of future engineers related to the specifics of technical thinking. The methodological peculiarities (combination of online discussions with classroom training; stage-role differentiation of online discussions (structuring) on the basis of a scenario plan; use of a facilitation model with partially symmetric interaction of online discussions participants; conducting online discussions in microgroups of 4-6 hours) were identified and the mechanisms of their influence on the effectiveness of combined online discussions in the formation of future engineers’ reflexion were described. Taking into account the above mentioned methodological features, the teacher’s recommendations on the effective organization of the educational process in technical universities on the basis of the developed technology have been formulated. The correlation between the application of the developed technology and the improvement of the subjects’ reflexive skills by 19.67-32.79% was shown and a conclusion was made about its significant role in the formation of a holistic view of the students of technical universities about the discussion as a complex multidimensional category, in which an important role is played by building social interaction with opponents, understanding their position and reaching compromise solutions.

Interdisciplinary approach to the development and creation of open question items for assessment procedures in accordance with the digital transformation strategy and the new requirements for state accreditation of educational programs of higher education has been presented in the article. It has been revealed the content of the author’s terms including linguo-pedagogical mastery, linguo-pedagogical design, linguistic correctness and methodological literacy of test tasks. On the basis of scientometric analysis carried out due to the scientific electronic library elibrary it has been determined the chronological activity and subject correlation of publications of native researchers on testing students. Based on the results of a survey of teachers from 11 regional universities the main difficulties in the preparation of testing and assessment materials are summarized. Examples of test items in disciplines taught at a multidisciplinary polytechnic university are analyzed. Typical errors in the wording of questions, reference answers and evaluation criteria have been identified by the methods of erratological analysis and the reasons for their appearance have been summarized. To model the linguo-pedagogical design of test tasks the concept of an epistemic situation is used, its four components are described: ontological (subject-content definition of objects and elements of control), methodological (selection of types and types of tasks depending on the level of measured outcomes of learning), communicative-pragmatic (ensuring the comprehensibility of the text of the test task) and technological (technical implementation of the automated check of free response). Methods of test tasks modification with the help of modern digital services are proposed. As a result of the study, the authors formulate recommendations for the implementation of the linguo-pedagogical design of open question items with a focus on their implementation in the digital environment.

In the era of the development of innovative technologies, the processes taking place in universities determine new requirements for the personality and professional competence of a teacher. A modern teacher is not just a transmitter of information and accumulated experience, but also a person who understands the essence of modern life and strives to harmoniously fit into existing realities, while focused on changing his consciousness, worldview and openness to everything new. In this connection, the problem of the teacher’s psychological readiness for innovation, as a component of his professionalism, is relevant. The purpose of the study: to study the peculiarities of readiness for innovation and identify the main barriers preventing the development of innovations among university teachers; based on the results obtained, to develop a methodology for the development of innovative activity of teachers. The study involved 156 university teachers aged 27 to 40 years with 1 to 15 years of work experience at the university. The study revealed that about a third of teachers show a low level of readiness for innovation. Only 22% of teachers have a high level of innovation activity. In the structure of readiness for innovation, they will have a motivational component, indicating a desire for success in achieving their goals. It was also found that the leading factors hindering the innovative activity of teachers are: insufficient awareness of possible innovative activities at the university; the belief that only the traditional education system is effective; lack of assistance in mastering innovations in the team, as well as fear of negative performance results. The systematization of the theoretical and empirical data obtained made it possible to develop a methodology for the development of innovative activity of university teachers, consisting of two main directions: environmental – features of the scientific and educational innovative environment; subjective – motivation, level of training and personal characteristics of teachers.