Measuring language competencies of the school of public administration students during the forced rapid shift of the education system to a distance mode

The paper considers the issue of assessing students’ knowledge during the forced shift of the education system to a distance mode because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relevance of the research is due to the search for effective approaches to solve the problem of measuring language competencies of university students in the conditions of distance learning. At the same time, such concerns were identified as the reliability and accuracy of the results of the acquisition of knowledge and the formation of competencies related to cognitive processes, and when conducting exams in an online format, the need to prevent fraudulent actions, on the one hand, and the violation of student’s personal digital space using a video surveillance camera by the examiner, on the other. The goals of assessment of the learning process in general and in the distance mode, in particular, are defined. The possibilities of using diagnostic, regulatory, and substantiating types of assessment are considered. The following forms of assessment are analyzed: summarizing, descriptive, hermeneutic. The conducted analysis of the current and final assessments of the formation of foreign language professional competencies among students of the Faculty of Public Administration of Lomonosov Moscow State University made it possible to identify the optimal process for planning various forms of assessment and their integration into the educational process. The materials of this paper can be used by teachers at Russian universities in the development of methods for measuring students’ language competencies in a distance learning mode.