Competence In Time As A Professional Activity Effectiveness Factor

Time impact on the professional activity effectiveness.

Time determines the effectiveness of any professional activity, where the main criteria are speed and accuracy of many actions. One main components of psychological time is the personal life time organization. It manifests itself in the reflection of objective time, dynamic and procedural characteristics of the psyche, as well as in the ability of the psyche to regulate time and personal time organization, that is a kind of time-spatial continuum where the person’s value relations with the surrounding world are developed (Abulkhanova & Berezina, 2001).

Personal time organization.

A distinguishing feature of a capable person is the ability to set a certain pace of activity, and also to discover possibility to act at a higher speed on different time scales. Ability to manage his abilities, to master new tempos and time opportunities, and there is a specific ability of the person to organize the life time.

Based on the above said, time management is supposed to be a special competence of a person who plays one of the most important roles in organizing the person’s life in all activity spheres.

The essence of time as a personal characteristic.

Competence is considered to be subjective rather than positional characteristic, and it is based on basic personal characteristics that have a significant influence on the formation of competencies, their components are knowledge and skills.

The problem of inefficient time usage by specialists.

Due to the fact that time management is a special competence of a person, the main problem is that many specialists do not know how to allocate efficiently their time and it directly affects the effectiveness of not only their work, but also the organization in a whole.

Constantly changing conditions of professional activity, the person’s inability to organize his time can lead to some serious consequences. In the short term, it can be expressed in impossibility of meeting the deadlines, making wrong decisions, additional hours of ineffective work, while in the long-term it can lead to professional burnout of the person and dismissal.

The study of time as a psychological phenomenon.

The category of time as a psychological phenomenon was studied at the beginning of the XXth century. However, the psychological time study peak came much later. Special problem development of time in psychology was in the 80es of the XXth century and a special contribution to this scientific activity field was made by Russian scientists. The works of S.L. Rubinstein and his colleagues are the methodological basis for studying the subjective experience of time (Rubenstein, 2000).

The study of time as a professional personal competence.

Time becomes a significant factor in the development of activities in the psychological structure of activity and it is the essence of professionally important personal qualities development. Time determines the effectiveness of any professional activity, where the main criteria are speed and accuracy of actions.

There are different types of competencies: social, professional, personal, etc. And time competence is their important component. All this indicates that time competence has such universals as "tolerability" and "transitivity". That is why it is an important component in the model of professional competence.

According to I.A. Zimnyaya, competence in time should be studied holistically considering motivational, cognitive, behavioral, perceptual and regulatory components (Bolotova, 2006).

Considering above said, time competence has a certain structure consisting of the following components:

• A value-semantic component (the person’s relation to time, social importance awareness of effective time organization, personal responsibility for the realization of his time as a resource).

• A motivational component (revealed through the motivation power to organize time of life and activity, through the desire to realize one’s potential in life).

• A cognitive component (knowledge of technology, techniques of organizing time).

• A reflexive component (the person’s ability to anticipate the results of actions before they are actually produced and thereby to monitor time indicators in the process of their own vital activity).

• An operational and technological component (determines the technology of life time organization and provides the procedural side of the activities implementation).

Time competence is one type of general person’s competence. Thus, T.P. Afanasyeva, N.V. Nemova in their model of general person’s competence allocate cognitive, affective and volitional components (Kovalyov, 1988).

Thus, the research theoretical significance on this subject is to obtain new data on the features of time competence as a factor in the professional activity effectiveness. And practical importance makes possible to use the findings to develop new programs, methods or trainings to improve the organizing personal time effectiveness, that can lead to improving the performance of people and adapting to new working conditions (in particular, working conditions in limited time modes).

The following methods were used to study the theoretical material.

There are analysis and synthesis, comparative-analytical methods.

The following methods were used to collect primary data of the study.

There is a questionnaire and test method. The basis of the questionnaire method was the main causes of the time loss identified by the German author L. Zaivert (Seiwert, 1993).

The following tests were used in the study:

• standardized methods for studying the personal time organization and factors that may have an impact on it, such as E.Shostrom's "Competence in Time" (SAT) scale (Bolotova, 2006);

• test "Index of life satisfaction" (A. Newgarten) (Neugarten, Havinghuret, & Tobin, 1961);

• test "Personal competence in time" N.Yu. Grigorovskaya (Bolotova, 2006);

• tests used in management for the selection of personnel and aimed at identifying the "sense of time" in the individual and the level of its value for him (Bolotova, 2006).

The above methods were used to identify the causes of ineffective time usage by young people and factors that affect it.

Mathematical methods were used for processing primary data and their further interpretation.

The basic mathematical methods used in this study include descriptive statistics (the calculation of the arithmetic mean and the standard deviation) and linear correlation.

Findings obtained by the questionnaire method.

A sociological survey on the main reasons for the time loss and its ineffective usage (see Table 01 ) based on a list of the most common "Thieves of Time" compiled by L. Zaivert identified some main reasons for the time loss among young specialists (Seiwert, 1993).

As a result, the most common reasons for ineffective time usage were identified and they are multitasking, simultaneous execution of several actions, and incomplete understanding of current tasks and ways to solve them. These reasons are the main factors of person’s inability to organize his time. Without specific presentation of tasks to be performed at a certain time, the ability to rank them in terms of importance and a clear idea of the required time spent on each operation, it is impossible to perform the work effectively, especially in the limited time mode.

Absence of motivation and, as a consequence, procrastination, lack of priorities and distraction for various irritants indicate the professional personal burnout, that ultimately entails a decrease in the working capacity of employees.

Findings obtained by testing.

The results obtained on E. Shostrom’s "Competence in time" (SAT) scale, that is an integral part of the self-actualization test, can determine the existence of a relationship of orientation in time with the level of person’s self-actualization. In other words, if respondents are able to experience the present moment of their life in its entirety, and not just as a fatal consequence of the past or preparing for a future "real" life, and also if they have ability to feel the inseparability of the past, present and future (Navarro, Roe, & Artiles, 2015; Bolotova, 2006).

Considering the fact that a part of technique was used in this study, namely "time competence" scale, then for a qualitative analysis of the data obtained it is rationally to calculate high, middle and low levels on this scale and a sample.

The study proved that most of the subjects had optimal (67%) level of competency in time. A high level of competence 20% of respondents was incompetent in time, whereas 13% of specialists have low level. These findings suggest that the majority of young specialists have prospects in the development of time management skills.

To verify findings there were conducted other techniques studies, determining the level of specialists competence (in particular, N.Y. Grigorovskaya’s "Personal competence in Time" technique, which, unlike E. Shostroma’s "Competence in time" scale identifies the most significant aspects of operational time management).

Due to the analysis two main components were identified. A group of factors determining the person’s time competence in the long period of time (the ability to allocate their time for a long term, holistic vision of the past, present and future times, sequence in purposes, matching set and achieved goals):

• The index of life satisfaction.

• Competence in time.

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A group of factors determining the person’s time competence in the short term (i.e., the ability to allocate efficiently their time during the day, not procrastination "for later", etc.) consists of personal competence in time and procrastination.