Student's Personality As One Of The Aspects Of Modern Pedagogical Activity

Abstract

The process of continuous reform of the modern education system is, among other things, one of the sources of uncertainty in pedagogical activity, where the results of actions cannot be considered deterministic, and the degree of possible influence of various factors is uncertain. In this paper, as one of the sources of uncertainty in professional pedagogical activity, the individual characteristics of the student's personality, namely his meaning-life orientation, are considered. The value-semantic sphere of the student's personality determines the strategy of his individual development, the process of organizing interaction with him and the search for conditions for creating an optimal educational environment. The conducted research has shown that there is a close relationship between the meaning-of-life orientation of the student (in particular, on the effectiveness of life) and the type of his locus of control, the degree of responsibility for the results of his activities, which the student is ready to either impose on himself or attribute to external factors. This result suggests that students who are satisfied with their own achievements at a particular stage of life (in the learning process) will continue to demonstrate the conviction that they have the ability to exercise control over the life situation and are responsible for it.

Keywords: Pedagogical activity, value-semantic sphere, meaning-life orientation

Introduction

The development of pedagogical theory and practice at the present stage is characterized by continuous qualitative transformations of the content and structure of professional pedagogical activity. The transformation of the conceptual foundations of the educational process requires considering pedagogical activity as a complex type of professional activity with conditions of high uncertainty, in which the result of influences cannot be considered deterministic, and it is impossible to predict the degree of possible influence of various factors (Krieger, 2014).

Among the many sources of uncertainty in professional pedagogical activity, one of the most important, in the authors' opinion, is the meeting with the individual characteristics of the student's personality, the process of organizing interaction with him, building a trajectory of his development and finding suitable conditions for creating a developing educational atmosphere (Fadeeva, 2020; L'dokova, 2006).

Describing the pedagogical activity today, we can talk about the presence of a unifying idea, which is expressed in the recognition of the student's personality as one of the basic values of modern society, which reveals the desire to maximize the full disclosure of a person's potential, stimulate his activity and support responsibility for solving individual and social problems.

In turn, the student's personality is determined by his value-semantic sphere – a mechanism for determining and comparing the significance of personal characteristics, such as motives, aspirations and individual essence. The formation and development of the system of personal meanings is subject to well-defined patterns and has a phase character (Ilyin, 2011; Potanina, 2011; Sergeeva & Kustova, 2017). At different life stages, these processes are carried out through such mechanisms as interiorization, identification and internalization. At the early stages of development, the main mechanism is the internalization of the external conditions of reality. In childhood and adolescence, meanings become an element of subjective reality to a greater extent through identification with significant people. Since adolescence, the system of personal meanings develops and functions mainly through the generation of semantic structures through meaningful and consciously accepted experience. During the passage of a certain stage of age and personal development, lower-order meanings are generalized and determine the structure of higher-level meanings. This process occurs through the experience of the meanings of the past, present and future, as a result of which the semantic system of the personality is constructed (Sivolobova, 2005; Vlasova, 2019; Yanitsky, 2000).

A special case of the meaning-of-life concept of personality, manifested in everyday life conditions, is the meaning-of-life orientations. In the modern scientific literature, there are two main meanings of this concept. In the first case, it is similar to the concept of "value orientations" and denotes the direction of meaning-forming values (Makushina & Mazkina, 2018). The second meaning of this concept is associated with the test of life-meaning orientations developed by Leontiev (2000).

Problem Statement

In general, life-meaning orientations are the result of awareness of values, goals and the meaning of one's own life, as well as their expression in the past, present and future. One of the most important aspects of such awareness is the effectiveness of life (satisfaction with self-realization) – a kind of the indicator of the assessment of the passed stage of life, a sense of its productivity and meaningfulness.

The formation of life-meaning orientations in general and the effectiveness of life in particular throughout the life of an individual is influenced by the type of his locus of control – the degree of responsibility that a person imposes either on himself (internality) or on the conditions of the external environment (externality). Rotter (1966) believed that the locus of control is universal in all types of situations, that is, it is static both in the sphere of success and in situations of failure. The degree of internality and externality depends on how a person considers and evaluates the causality of events and situations that occur in his life.

Research Questions

Each formed personality can be evaluated on the scale of "internality-externality", but for most people, relatively intermediate indicators are characteristic. It is more correct to talk about a tendency to a particular type of locus of control. The locus of control affects human behaviour in the case of both successful resolution of a particular life situation and in the case of failures, and this applies to different spheres of social life to varying degrees. Thus, it is possible to draw a direct parallel between locus control and the value-semantic sphere of the individual, which also has an effect on every situation in which a person is present (Davudova et al., 2016; Lustina, 2016).

Purpose of the Study

Thus, there is a need to identify the features of the relationship between such phenomena of the psyche as meaning-life orientation and the type of locus of control.

Research Methods

To achieve this goal, the following methods were used: the meaning-in-life orientation test, which is an adapted version of the Purpose-in-Life Test (PIL) James Crambo and Leonard Maholik (Leontiev, 2000), as well as the method of the level of subjective control (E. F. Bazhin, E. A. Golynkina, L. M. Etkind) (Bazhin, 1984). The latter (in particular, the scale of general internality) is an adaptation of the test-questionnaire of subjective control by J. Rotter. The main purpose of this methodology is to study and analyze the level of subjective control over any significant situations characteristic of a particular respondent.

Statistical processing of empirical data and correlation analysis of the scales of the meaning-life orientation test and the scales of general internality, as well as achievements, failures, interpersonal relationships and health of the subjective control level methodology were carried out at a significance level of 0.05.

Findings

As a result of the analysis conducted between the scale for the effectiveness of life and the scales of general internality, it became known that there is a significant correlation between the meaning-of-life orientation to the effectiveness of life and the scale of the general internality of the individual. The significant value of Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between the meaning-of-life orientation to the effectiveness of life and the scale of general internality (0.695) suggests that students who are satisfied with their own achievements at the current stage of life are likely to demonstrate the features of internality when evaluating their own capabilities. The student's life is artificially divided into stages through the organization of the learning process. Each semester, the student receives feedback about the success of passing one or another part of the training program in the form of an assessment, which in turn forms a sense of progress or stagnation in the assimilation of new knowledge, as well as the perception of their own capabilities in the future. Thus, the student not only receives information about the success of mastering the material, but also compares his own patterns of behaviour with the pursued goal, selecting effective and discarding ineffective ones. A student who was satisfied with the goal set in the learning process will strive for those patterns of behaviour that brought him success earlier; for example, those that show the value of responsibility and control.

Further, a correlation analysis was carried out between the scales of the test of life orientations and the scales of internality in the field of achievements and the field of failures.

As a result, a significant correlation was revealed between the scale of meaning-life orientations on the effectiveness of life and the scale of internality in the field of achievements (0.507) and a slightly less significant inverse correlation – in the field of failures (-0.376). This may indicate that if a student demonstrates satisfaction at this stage of life, he will show signs of a developed sense of subjective control in relation to negative events and situations, and will not avoid responsibility for his achievements with an adequate correlation of the circumstances of success.

Finally, it was found that there is no significant relationship between the scales of meaning-life orientations and the scales of internality in the field of interpersonal relations and attitudes to health.

The above data can indicate that interpersonal relationships do not have a direct connection with the meaning-of-life orientations of the individual. The same can be said about the attitude to health and illness. The situation of a significant, sharp change in physical health is rare in the student age. Young people often do not think about how their actions at the moment can affect their health in the future, and the results confirm this assumption.

Conclusion

As a result of the conducted research, the authors came to the conclusion that there is a significant relationship between the meaning-of-life orientation to the effectiveness of life and the scale of the general internality of the individual. This result indicates that students who are satisfied with their own achievements at a particular stage of life are most likely to show the conviction that they have control over the life situation and are responsible for it.

A significant relationship was found between the meaning-of-life orientation to the effectiveness of life and the scale of internality in the field of achievements. This may indicate that if a student demonstrates satisfaction with the past stage of life, he will show signs of a developed sense of subjective control in relation to negative events and situations, and will not avoid responsibility for his achievements with an adequate correlation of the circumstances of success.

It was revealed that there is no significant relationship between the indicators of the scales of meaning-life orientations and the scales of internality in the field of interpersonal relations and attitudes to health. This may indicate that life-meaning orientations are not related to internality in the field of social relations and in relation to the student's health.

The results obtained within the framework of this study will allow, even in conditions of high uncertainty, to create prerequisites for developing the most optimal strategy at different levels of the organization of the pedagogical process, as well as for choosing the most adaptive models and strategies for professional interaction between a teacher and a student.

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