Psychological And Pedagogical Optimization Tools For The Volition Behaviour Of The Over-Fives

The conditions for the problem development.

In the absence of conditions for the development of the child’s volitional behaviour in the pre-school period, the process of development in the child is slowed down: stability and independence from accidental external circumstances and formed internal inclination; the ability "to keep feelings under control"; an active attitude to the surrounding reality, which leads to the growing personality deformation, its creative and transformative functions. It focuses the problem of research about the issues of the pre-school children's will formation in general and the individual lines of the child’s volitional behaviour development in particular during this age.

The peculiarities of the child’s voluntary action.

The volitional behaviour features of the child are expressed through the volitional actions, which are guided by cognitive and physical activity. The study of the peculiarities of the child’s voluntary actions correlation in physical and cognitive activity provides an opportunity to outline effective technologies that will help teachers in solving the issues of optimizing children's activities through the formation of the pupils’ volitional behaviour.

The opinion of scientists.

Scientists consider the volitional behavior of social formations both in terms of content and mechanisms of its development, and the source of volitional behavior formation is the interaction of the child with the outside world. 

The levels of volitional regulation.

Psychologists also distinguish levels of volitional regulation. Voluntary regulation is regarded as aimed not at the subject of activity, but in itself and, accordingly, the development of the will in ontogenesis is the consistent formation of the three levels of self-subjective relations (Kalin, 1989, 1986, 1983; Kotyrlo, 1974).

The first two are self-awareness and reflection. The lower (first) level forms self-consciousness, which is shown in the form of "implicit knowledge" about "I", which can be transferred to the act of reflection in "explicit knowledge" (second level). At the highest (third) level of self-subjective relations there is an active reorganization of the actual manifestations of "I", it is a level of volitional regulation.

The child’s development.

The moral motives by the preschool child gradually gain the erg and begin to determine the content and nature of their actions in the system of its interaction with adults and peers. They enter into different proportions and form a complex hierarchical structure, subordinating themselves to the child's situational desires, which slow down the goal achieving process (Burmenskaya, 2000).

During the pre-school period of the child's development there is not only a new correlation of motives, but the motives themselves acquire another, a peculiar character i.e. they become mediated, capable of inducing the child's activities in accordance with the intention. Due to this, it becomes capable of conscious moral choice (Zaporozhets, 1978).

The mechanism of the behaviour.

The important thing for the developmental program was the provision that the mechanisms of the preschool child voluntary behaviour are originated and formed in the game (role-playing, story-didactic, and motor). The game situation supports a high level of motivation for activities, promotes subordination of child behaviour to rules, mobilizing the child volitional efforts to overcome obstacles in the goal achieving process.

Two directions of the children’s volition.

The educators’ training for work on the development of the children’s volition was conducted in two directions: a) the theoretical i.e. in order to refine and systematize knowledge on this problem; b) practical i.e. in order to master the practical skills and developing environment creating abilities.

In implementing the development program it is expedient to use the following methods: gaming - didactic games and exercises, physical and role-playing games; fairy tales reading; psychological gymnastics elements; techniques on self-regulation; drawing, designing, conversations and assimilative methodical techniques.

The types of activity.

There are determined three types of activity: physical (in the research of various authors it is also called motor, physical), intellectual (psychic, most often used cognitive term for preschool children), communicative and three groups of indicators: speed, ergic and variability.

Indicators of child’s activity are in a certain correlation with each other. According to Chirkova (1998), high rates of motor activity may be combined with low variability in the same type of activity in the six-year-old children. Physical activity high rates may not coincide with high-speed indicators of intellectual one (Pirozhenko, 2002).

The stages of volitional action among psychologists.

In comparison with intended as a conscious action aimed at the realization of the goal, volitional action is its kind, the highest form of manifestation with its specific features.

Such an approach to the correlation of arbitrary and volitional action allows to eliminate numerous contradictions that arise during the discussion of the problem of intended and voluntary behaviour of the person, to preserve the continuity of various forms in the formation of intended behaviour, realizing the well-known thesis of development, as a progressive advance, including the transition from lower forms to higher, the conversion is simple to complex.

There is no unity of views about the main stages of volitional action among psychologists. We adhere to such a structure of volitional action: 1) setting the goal - the emergence of the motive of action, its awareness, "the struggle of motives, the allocation of purpose, justification of its choice, decision-making action; 2) planning the progress of its implementation; 3) process of implementation - step-by-step control, mobilization of volitional efforts and overcoming obstacles; 4) awareness and evaluation of the result.

The volitional development of the child, according to Vygotskyi (2000), is through the gradual release of the child from the direct dependence of the casual external circumstances and spontaneously formed internal inclinations and acquiring the ability to "keep feelings under control", the external and internal activity. The pre-schooler is gradually learning to regulate his/her activity by strengthening, restraining or inhibiting the motives, experiences, thoughts or actions. The will in the genetic plan is the stage of mastering his/her own processes of behaviour (Vygotsky, 2000).

The main forms of manifestation of child capacity are activity, behaviour, and communication with other people.

The volitional sphere development of the preschool children personality takes place on the principle of the normative behaviour formation: individual differences, desires and interests of children are neglected; there are no positive approaches to pre-schoolers that would help them to behave constructively; there is a lack of children's activities and behaviour organization, where the adult’s initiative prevails, and the activity of children is mainly manifested in the implementation or non-acceptance of direct guidance and requirements of the preschool teacher.

In this case, instead of the ability to consciously manage themselves, the children of the elder preschool age are without initiative, self-control, inability to self-search, the habit of falling into difficulties and refusing to do things, they are depended on requirements, specific instructions and direct help from the adult.

The individual lines optimization of volitional behaviour development of senior preschool children in the conditions of the pre-school educational institution is realized through the basic principles of psycho-pedagogical design of the adult’s interaction with the child, based on the implementation of person-oriented communication and subject-subjective interaction between the child and the adult (Chirkova, 1998). The psychological and pedagogical conditions of optimizing the interaction of an adult with a child to develop the volitional behaviour of children of the senior preschool age in the activity of cognitive and motor direction are defined:

- bringing the child to a system of active interaction with the outside world;

- creating atmosphere of trustful partner interaction with the pupil by an adult, which is based on the emotionally warm attitude of adults towards them, their sincere interest in the problems;

- encouraging the child to take initiative, independent action, giving them the right to choose, forecasting her opportunities and successes in his/her own activities; child’s experiences with the adults the temporary failures and joint search for ways to overcome them;

- using the stimulating character of the results achieved by the child; providing by the educators and parents with the maximum level of motivation for children's activities in the process of using gaming situations during plot-didactic and moving games, creative stories, drawing, designing;

- the ability of preschool children to actively adopt and independently set the goal of action; make a choice of one of several desired goals; create an action plan; to manage the process of its implementation, in accordance with its intention, instruction or sample, to correct actions; mobilize efforts to overcome the difficulties that arise along the way and achieve the desired result.

The main forms of psychological and pedagogical influence.

The main forms of psychological and pedagogical influence on the development of volitional behaviour of senior preschool children are defined:

- lectures and practical classes with the aim of clarifying, systematizing the educators' knowledge of the given problem and mastering them with practical skills and skills for creating a developing environment in the process of pupils’ volitional behaviour formation;

- lectures, educational and advisory work with parents on the issues of education of their children's volitional behaviour;

- individual, collective and classes with small subgroups with elder pre-schoolers on the method of psychological and pedagogical designing in order to develop their volitional actions in various forms of activity.

To ensure the effectiveness of the nourishing effects on children, carried out by a psychologist, we foresee a special work with educators and parents of senior preschool children.

The main results.

Volitional behaviour is realized in various types of childhood activities in the process: the conscious adoption of the child's purpose; regulating its actions in accordance with it and overcoming obstacles in achieving the desired result.

The dynamics of volitional behaviour at the stage of pre-school childhood is determined by the content of voluntary actions of children in various types of childhood activity and is developed in the individual characteristics of manifestation levels of the motivational and regulatory structural components of volitional behaviour in the over-fives.

The program for the development of the elder preschool children voluntary behaviour in cognitive and motor activity is adequate to create conditions for the senior pre-age age children volitional behaviour intensive creation in different types of childhood activity in the system of preschool education. In the process of such developmental work, it is formed the ability of a senior preschool child to consciously regulate their behaviour, to make volitional efforts while facing the difficulties, to achieve goals in various types of subject and practical activity.

The skills for children.

In the process of cognitive and motor activity, children with the help of an adult are included in the system of active interaction with the outside world through: conscious adoption and formulation of meaningful goals for them; mastering the means of managing their behaviour. These skills gave the child the opportunity to make an informed choice, assert themselves in their abilities, gain confidence in their abilities, adequately perceive difficulties and expand the limits of opportunities to overcome them.