Analysis of Undergraduates’ Ideal and Belief Education under the Perspective of New Media

College of Marxism, Northwest A & F University, Yangling 712100, China

1 Introduction

In theOpinionsonStrengtheningandImprovingtheIdeologicalandPoliticalWorkinCollegesandUniversitiesintheNewSituation issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Sate Council in December 2016, it is clearly stated that "in the era of reform and opening up and the advancement of the socialist market economy, and the rapid development of the Internet and other new communication channels, colleges and universities should focus on improving the ideological and political qualities of teachers and students, and give top priority to the education of ideals and beliefs." At the same time, it is emphasized that "it is necessary establish Internet thinking, highly integrate traditional advantages of ideological and political work with information technology, and make the Internet become a new platform of ideological and political education". Through the investigation and analysis of current status of undergraduates’ ideals and beliefs and the influencing factors, the implementation strategy for the ideal and belief education of college students under the new media environment was studied, and the pertinence and sense of the times in the ideological and political work of universities should be enhanced.

In this study, to investigate network new media and ideals and beliefs of undergraduates, a questionnaire survey on 4 998 undergraduates who entered an agricultural and forestry university in 2015 was conducted. The number of the investigated undergraduates accounted for 90.3% of total number of all undergraduates, and the efficiency of the questionnaires was 98.2%. The survey involved 20 colleges of the university, including liberal arts, science, engineering, and agricultural sciences.

2 Current status of undergraduates’ ideals and beliefs

Ideals and beliefs are the core of a person’s spiritual world, and they are the concentrated reflection of individual’s world outlook, outlook on life, and values on the goal of a struggle.

2.1ValuesIn the questionnaires, for the question "what does a person’s value depend on", the top three options were "whether the personality is noble" (81.7%), "the contribution to society (77.1%)" and "whether life is comfortable and casual (66.4%), and "whether you have made a career" (56.0%) and "the level of social reputation" (21.5%). In respect of the willingness to serve society and achieve self-worth, for the answers to "do you want to be a volunteer", the proportion of "very willing" was higher (65.9%), and the proportion of "depending on the circumstances" was lower (23.1%), while the proportion of "not willing" was the lowest (9.5%). It shows that under the social background of diversified values, the mainstream values of most undergraduates are positive, and most college students are correct in their understanding of the relationship between individual values and social value and have the valuable spiritual qualities of realizing individual values down to earth. However, the values of many undergraduates clearly paid more attention to personal ideals and recent ideals than social ideals and long-term ideals, and their ideals trended towards utilitarianism and realization[1].

2.2IdealsandbeliefsThe pursuit of the mind, belief,etc. is the basic spiritual needs of man, but this spiritual needs need to be based on a scientific worldview. Faith is the most concentrated and highest-level form of beliefs, and is divided into non-scientific faiths (e.g. religious faiths) and scientific ideals and beliefs.

2.2.1Religious faith. According to the survey results, the religious types of faith were mainly the four major religions in the world. Among the investigated students who entered the university in 2015, 11.2% of the students had clear religious faiths. For the understanding of "what is religion", 46.5% of the students thought that "it was a historical and cultural phenomenon", and 24.8% of the students believed that "religion was a group that has organization and teachings and rules". Nearly half of the undergraduates’ perception of religious faiths belief was more objective and rational.

However, it cannot be overlooked that the proportion of answers "religion is a noble spiritual activity" and "unclear" was about 11.0%, indicating that about 20% of the students’ understanding of the nature of religious faiths needed yet to be properly guided. From the survey, it was found that the main reasons for the undergraduates to believe in religion were "family and ethnic reason" (83.2%), "seeking spiritual sustenance" (35.2%), "finding meaning of life and sense of belonging in religion "(30.9%), "curiosity and sense of novelty" (13.1%) and "liking atmosphere of religious groups" (7.8%). It is worth noting that about 12.5% of the undergraduates might believe in religion because of "curiosity".

2.2.2Scientific ideals and beliefs. The great practice of China’s construction and reform and opening up has repeatedly demonstrated that the realization of common ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics in a new era needs to rely on the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China. The attitudes of undergraduates towards joining the party can test whether the ideals and beliefs of undergraduates are correct and firm to a certain extent. For undergraduates’ attitudes towards joining the party, 80.1% of them chose "actively join the party", and 14.8% of them were "indifferent", while 5.1% of them "did not join the party". For the question "what is the most important motive for undergraduates to join the party", the proportion of the students who chose "pursuing ideals and beliefs", "increasing employment competitiveness", and "having confidence in the party’s governing position and philosophy" was 40.5%, 21.9%, and 18.3% respectively. According to the above survey data, most students’ attitudes towards joining the party were positive and correct, while a small number of students were not clear about their political attitudes and political concepts, and their ideals and beliefs were not very firm. More than 50% of the students have the correct motive for joining the party, but about 20% of students’ motivation for joining the party had utilitarian characteristics.

3 Effects of network new media on contemporary undergraduates’ thoughts

New media mainly refer to interactive and convergent forms and platforms of media based on digital technology, network technology, and other modern information technologies or communication technologies. At this stage, new media mainly include online media, mobile phone media, and mobile internet formed by the integration of the two, as well as other forms of interactive digital media, including WWW, e-mail, search engines, blogs, Weibo, QQ, WeChat, and APP, which are characterized by "digitization, integration, interaction, and networking"[2]. In the era of diversified values, undergraduates born after 1995 have active thinking and accept new things fast, and network new media have wide and deep effects on their daily life, learning and ideology. Seen from the survey results, it is found that for the daily average time to surf the Internet, the proportion of the students who chose "1-3 h" was 66.5%, and 15.4% of the students chose "less than 1 h", while the proportion of the students who chose "more than 3 h" was also 15.4%. For the "mostly done things on the Internet," the answers were "shopping" (78.5%), "chat" (68.8%), "browsing news" (64.2%), "others" (41.7%), "reading study materials" (26.8%), "updating blogs or personal homepage" (25.0%), and "playing games or entertainment" (15.2%). For the question "the influence of the Internet on your ideas and concepts", 54.4% of the students thought that "the impact is very great", and 42.0% of the students thought that "the impact is relatively large". It can be seen that the objective effects of undergraduates who live in the network age should not be underestimated.

The current social environment is complex and complicated, and diverse information and various social thoughts are flooding the network. Undergraduates’ world outlook, outlook on life and values are facing severe challenges. Network new media have features such as the virtuality of communication, the diversity of values, and the subjectivity of use. From the survey, it is found that in terms of "how to look at the impact of the Internet on one’s own thinking", 48.6%, 21.0%, 17.7%, and 12.8% of the undergraduates chose "positive impact is equal to negative impact", "positive impact outweighs negative impact", "negative impact outweighs positive impact", and "unclear" respectively. It shows that about 50% of the students could dialectically view the impact of the Internet on themselves, but still about 20% of the students had a one-sided view on the role of the Internet. The survey shows that the mainstream outlook on life, world outlook and values, ideals and beliefs of undergraduates were correct, but problems cannot be ignored at the same time. Therefore, it is necessary to take advantage of the situation, make full use of and play the role of new media, effectively occupy the network of ideological and political education, and help undergraduates clarify the wrong concepts, guide one-sided understanding, and consolidate the correct ideals and beliefs.

4 Using new media to educate undergraduates about ideals and beliefs

In view of the above findings, based on the three basic principles of in accordance with undergraduates’ psychological and spiritual needs, integrating high-quality content and resources of ideological and political education, and combining explicit education with implicit education, a new media education platform and carrier should be constructed, and three-dimensional network new media space is created for ideal and belief education. Meanwhile, it is necessary to reform traditional education models of ideals and beliefs, integrate ideological and political education with new media, enriching the content of ideal and belief education, guide students to internalize scientific ideals and beliefs in the mind in emotions and consciously pursue in the will, and form theoretical self-confidence and theoretical self-confidence in the mainstream ideology, thereby improving the effectiveness of ideal and belief education.

4.1Integratingnetworknewmediaandusingthree-dimensionalideologicalandpoliticalteachingmodelsbasedonSPOCtoguideundergraduatestosetupacorrectoutlookonlifeandworldviewPrevious studies, reports, and this survey have shown that in the ideological and political work of colleges and universities, ideological and political theory courses have always played a leading role. The ideological and political education of undergraduates (including ideal and belief education) has achieved remarkable results, and the mainstream of ideological field in colleges and universities has been positive and healthy. To achieve effective ideal and belief education, it is necessary to continue to give full play to the main channel function of ideological and political theory courses. The traditional explicit education model that has been widely used in the ideological and political courses in the past has tended to cause passive acceptance by undergraduates and lead to shallow knowledge of value in students’ minds. Especially under the impact of pluralism and various values in today’s society, undergraduates are very vulnerable to cognitive turbulence, leading to instability in formation of values[3]. With the application and popularization of information technology in the field of education, the new teaching models based on network new media, such as MOOC (massive open online course), flipped teaching, SPOC (small private online course), and mixed classroom have emerged. As a combination of MOOC and flipped classroom, SPOC combines the advantages of MOOC and flipped classroom and can improve students’ learning motivation and learning participation, and enhance the quality of teaching, so it is a new teaching model welcomed by students[4]. Online teaching platforms and the mobile assistant teaching platform provide online technical support for the implementation of SPOC teaching. During ideal and belief education, teachers use "ideals and brief" as the main teaching line, while students watch micro classes on a teaching platform think and discuss the problems mentioned in micro classes online before class. Students use mobile micro teaching assistants to carry out classroom interactions in class. After class, they conduct extracurricular activities with the theme of "China Dream, My Dream". Students send feedback on learning on an online teaching platform in the form of homework, and teachers release excellent homework through a WeChat public platform for online sharing and exchange of learning experiences. Practice has shown that this method pays attention to the interest in learning ideals and beliefs, attaches importance to guiding the development needs and aspirations of students, and aligns students’ self-requirements with social development, thereby greatly stimulating students’ motivation for learning ideals and beliefs, and forming inner motivation for learning ideals and beliefs.

4.2UsingnewmediameanstocreatethesecondclassroomcenteredoncampuscultureandcommunityactivitiesandconductexperientialvalueeducationCampus culture and student organizations are the hidden classrooms for ideological and political education in colleges and universities. Instructors, headteachers, and ideological and political teachers should carry out various campus cultural activities, which can enable college students to enhance their emotional and psychological experience of correct ideals and beliefs in the process. For example, with the core values of socialism as the core, the 24-character socialist core values should be infiltrated into major festival activities, theatrical performances, red memories and other ceremonies and activities; through mobile micro teaching assistants, QQ groups,etc., real-time interaction can be conducted to share experience and guide students to set up correct ideals and beliefs. The activity of "writing a paragraph to your mother on Mother’s Day" can be carried out. Besides, Memorial Day of Nanjing Massacre and Memorial Day of a Great Man can be conducted to develop students’ gratitude, patriotic awareness and feelings. Red memory activities should be carried out. In addition, they should watch red movies and hit spy drama through mobile phones and other online media, write a sense of perception, and release it to the college’s WeChat public platform through a mobile client to carry out ideal and belief education of students. Undergraduates’ associations are self-organized social practice activities organized by students. Community activities are a useful way for students to connect with society and understand society. Public associations can use the "24-character core values" as a practical theme. Students can inquire about literature online, conduct practice participation and social experience, write down social practice reports, share and exchange their members’ feelings and experiences through the public welfare WeChat platform provided by the Youth League Committee. Through the above steps, the application of network new media has played an infiltration role in ideal and belief education and enabled students to internalize the correct values, ideals and beliefs into the mind and externalize them.

4.3Creatinganeffectivenetworknewmediamicro-platformtobuildthethirdclassroomofidealandfaitheducation

The official microblog, Youmu classes, Marxism classic reading, and teachers’ personal WeChat public micro-platform of College of Marxism are extensions of classroom education of ideals and beliefs. Through the opening of the special topic "my world view" on the APP platform of Youmu classes, the classic chapters ofDiscussionofReligionbyMarx,Engels,Lenin,andStalinandtheCommunistManifestoshould be uploaded the Internet, and the theme salon of "my world view"should be regularly held to enable students to distinguish between idealism and dialectical materialist world views. Through the opening of the personal WeChat public account "wisdom of philosophy", four sections, including my outlook on happiness, ideals and reality, I and Marxism, and my understanding of capitalism and socialism, are opened up to make students express their feelings from their own perspective, deepen the understanding of ideals and beliefs of Marxist basic principles, and reach an initiative recognition of common ideals and beliefs of socialism. Multimedia is used to carry out religious education. A minority of undergraduates’ understanding of the nature of religious beliefs needs to be properly guided and seeks for spiritual comfort, meaning and value in life, so online multimedia platforms can be used to carry out "repelling religious mystery education" and education of socialist core values. Religious topics can be opened up through the WeChat public platform, online education platform,etc. The classic chapters of the Koran, the Bible, and the Altar are uploaded online to carry out religious classic reading. Undergraduates should be educated by the core doctrines, canons, and ceremonies of all major religions and the development of religions in the world in the form of culture. In particular, undergraduates who are interested in religion and religious culture should be educated to guide them to conduct rational identification and judgment, thereby striving to restore religion to a part of human culture[5]. Using sharing and interactive communication functions of multimedia, with the theme of "religion and socialist core values", undergraduates are guided to analyze and discuss religious doctrines and teachings, so that they can gradually establish Marxism ideals and beliefs.

4.4Establishinganewmediaplatformforfamilies,schools,andsocietythatareinteractiveandconstructinganeducationalandecologicalenvironmentfortheidealsandbeliefsofundergraduatesA micro environment formed by a family and social environment have a great influence on the formation of students’ ideals and beliefs. Therefore, under the leadership of the Youth League Committee, counselors and class teachers should establish new media platforms for families, schools, and society that are interactive such as WeChat and microblog, publicize school-related policies, school disciplines, and campus activities, strengthen communication with students’ parents, encourage students to step out of campus and participate in social activities, and achieve a positive interaction between schools and students, families and social organizations.

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