Manuscript received June 25, 2026; accepted August 18, 2026; published September 22, 2026.

Abstract—As digital education and distance learning advance globally, ideological and political theory courses, a distinctive compulsory curriculum in mainland Chinese higher education tasked with fostering virtue and nurturing talent, face both opportunities and challenges in teaching reform. This paper takes such courses as the research subject, analyzes the current status and practical dilemmas of their distance teaching, and constructs an online-offline hybrid teaching framework covering curriculum design, resource development, interactive experience and teaching effect evaluation. This study conducted a randomized controlled trial with 426 undergraduates, who were evenly divided into an experimental group and a control group (213 students in each group). Data were collected at the mid-term (8th teaching week) and final stage (16th teaching week), and quantitative comparative analysis was adopted for data processing. The results demonstrate that digital distance teaching remarkably enhances the contemporaneity, appeal and effectiveness of ideological and political theory courses, and boosts students’ learning initiative, in-class participation and overall course satisfaction. This research provides implementable strategies and practical references for the innovative development of ideological and political education in the digital age, as well as relevant experience for international teaching research on similar value-oriented courses.
 
Keywords—ideological and political theory courses, distance learning, hybrid teaching, digital education

Cite: Jiang Momo and Duan Shudi, "Innovation and Practice of Ideological and Political Theory Courses in Digital Distance Learning," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 284-289, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).