The skills mobilized by students in distance learning: what lessons for the design of distance learning?[Les compétences mobilisées par les étudiants en formation à distance : quels enseignements pour la conception d'un enseignement à distance ?]

The purpose of this article is to study how distance learning students perceive themselves in a learning situation. To this end, a series of propositions aimed at identifying cognitive, organizational and interactional behaviours in the context of distance learning were proposed to them. They were also questioned to determine whether they felt they were successful in the course of study. Indeed, according to Hong and Jung (2011) successful students (i.e., those who complete their distance education and perform well) implement several strategies that draw on three broad categories of skills or abilities: (a) cognitive skills that allow the learner to develop learning processes or strategies; (b) interactional skills, i.e. the ability to communicate in order to learn by developing, reformulating, elaborating contents; and (c) managerial skills that lead the learner to organize himself according to his available time, deadlines to be reached, requirements... It is therefore a question of deploying cognitive strategies and volitional strategies in the sense of self-regulated learning theory (Cosnefroy, 2010). The comparison between the skills mobilized and those identified in the literature allows us to propose some ideas for course designers.