No 3 (2017)

In the contemporary world, the study of foreign language became an indispensable condition for the successfulness of a person in the professional sphere. However, in the context of strong differentiation of the first-year students according to the initial level of foreign language proficiency, high requirements of the occupational standards sometimes become a challenge for teachers, that is why the search for learning methods and techniques contributing to the achievement of goal and tasks still continues to be relevant. 

The paper gives the results of the practical application of a technique of teaching foreign language taking into account cognitive style of the students. The scientific literature contains more than ten kinds of cognitive style based on different peculiarities of the information acquisition and processing. Field dependence/field independence is a traditionally distinguished cognitive style since many of the researchers associate the students’ academic achievement with the field dependence/field independence, moreover, the information about this cognitive style is widely used in teaching activities because of its simple diagnostics.  

However, the analysis of cognitive style in respect of field dependence/field independence carried out by the author in the group of the students demonstrated the necessity of a search for another classification, more individualized. To be such a technique, A. Bowie intelligence organization index was used, which was approved by practical teaching experience. The application of this index and grouping the students according to their cognitive style, as well as taking into account the recommendations for training students with the specific cognitive style allowed improving academic achievement and the students’ motivation for learning a foreign language.     

The author emphasizes and demonstrates the necessity of the individual approach to the selection and application of a certain classification of cognitive styles with further implementation of appropriate recommendations to improve the efficiency of teaching a foreign language.

The paper emphasizes the importance of teaching the second foreign language in terms of the requirements of the State Educational Standards. In this regard, the issue of modeling the courses of the advanced studies for the second foreign language teachers becomes significant. Such refresher courses should be based on module approach with regard for individual educational needs of a teacher and take into account such principles as flexibility and variability.

The purpose of this study is to create the evaluation tool of the educational need of a second foreign language teacher. This evaluation tool will facilitate the creation of the targeted individual programme for the further education courses. A questionnaire is used to determine the educational needs and identify the lack of competences which are the component parts of the second foreign language teacher professional competence.

The paper considers multilingual communicative and methodological competence as the core of the second foreign language teacher professional competence. It is its components that should become the objects of improvement in the course of training teachers in the system of professional development.

Initial testing serves as a starting point for designing targeted training courses for the second foreign language teachers in a competence-based projection based on the module approach. Evaluation of the testing results gives an opportunity to define the invariant modules, which are compulsory for all students, such as multi-linguistic, multi-conversational, supporting and comparative. These modules are intended for development of the least developed subcompetences of the teachers. The analysis of individual testing results will allow the creation of a study path unique for every teacher based on their educational needs. It will combine an individual complex of variable modules with regard to the results of the initial testing.

A research of self-efficacy predictors has been done among school students of grades 5–9. Psychological means of academic adaptation, educational motives, and characteristics of decision-making in a situation of uncertainty have been chosen as predictors of self-efficacy. The concepts “academic adaptation”, “means of adaptation”, and “self-efficacy” are defined. The degree of scientific development of academic adaptation in Russian and foreign literature is determined. Theoretical and empirical researches in the field of pedagogical psychology are analyzed, which prove that certain personal variables contribute to the positive adaptation of schoolchildren. An attempt is made to link academic adaptation and self-efficacy. To study the predictors of self-efficacy by means of academic adaptation, appropriate diagnostic tools have been selected. As a method for studying the psychological means of academic adaptation, the author uses a specially developed questionnaire. The scientific paper presents the results of the empirical study, as well as the subsequent regression analysis of self-efficacy indicators and the preferred means of academic adaptation of middle school students. A detailed analysis of predictors of the self-efficacy level is presented with special emphasis on the psychological means of academic adaptation. The analysis is supplemented with a discussion of the results of empirical studies and conceptions of leading Russian and foreign scientists. It is determined that readiness for risk has the strongest prediction in relation to the level of self-efficacy among all psychological means of academic adaptation. In the conclusion, the author notes the existence of prediction of schoolchildren confidence degree in their ability to be productive in certain activities through psychological means described in the questionnaire.

The relevance of the study of the emotional state of the students during examination period is determined by the peculiarities of psychic tension, the excess of the threshold value of which influences destructively the psyche, causes anxiety, fatigue, hypersusceptibility and irritation, self-dissatisfaction, and negative self-feelings. The goal of the research is the determining of the relationship between the self-assessments of the students’ emotional states during examination period with their emotional intelligence. The main actions to achieve the goal were to carry out a summative experiment using the selected group of college students. The author used N. Hall’s test “The Emotional Intelligence Self-Evaluation”, H. Eysenck’s test “Self-assessment of Mental State”, A. Wessman and D. Ricks’s Test for Self-assessment of the Emotional State, Spearman’s Rank Correlation method. In the result of N. Hall’s test “The Emotional Intelligence Self-Evaluation”, mainly low self-esteems according to all five emotional intelligence scales were manifested: control of own emotions, emotion recognition, empathies, emotional awareness, and self-motivation. At the same time, in the result of H. Eysenck’s test “Self-assessment of Mental State”, the largest number of medium and high values according to the scales of aggression, rigidity, frustration, and anxiety were received. The data collected through the test for Self-assessment of the Emotional State of A. Wessmann and D. Ricks speak for the predominantly medium and low values of “tranquility/anxiety”, “self-confidence”, “vitality/fatigue”, “elation/despondency” scales. The conclusions made on the basis of these techniques are relevant to the fact that more than half of the students selected average values on the “sum of emotional states” scale. These students are characterized by the irritability, anxiety, and rigidity in the situation of the exam. The correlation relationships identified using the Spearman’s rank correlation method confirm as well the influence of emotional intelligence on the self-assessment of college students of their emotional states during the examination period.

The relevance of the study is caused by the fact that psychological adaptation is an integral part of modern life. Essentially, psychological adaptation is the process of approaching a person’s mental activity to the social and social-psychological requirements of the environment, the conditions, and content of professional activity of a person. The insufficient knowledge of special aspects of psychological adaptation at the early stage of the professionalization of youth has the critical importance when developing this issue.

The paper considers the special aspects of psychological adaptation of youth that are determined by the individual needs and abilities of a person, the adaptive situation nature, and the specificity of environmental demand.

The authors analyzed the gender aspect of adaptation and professionalization according to the assumption of the existence of certain peculiarities of adaptation of different genders representatives. The research of this topic involved the study of the respondents’ adaptation; the observations on the relations between the students and employees during the survey, in classes, during the working time; mathematical and statistical processing of data received.

Using special methodological tooling, the authors carried out the diagnostics of personal qualities of respondents divided into two groups depending on the employment patterns – students and employees. The obtained indices of psychological adaptation, psychological adaptability, and emotional and activity-based adaptability allowed proving the assumption on the existence of certain peculiarities of adaptation of the students and employees.

During the empirical research, the degree of adaptation manifestation of youth is determined and the peculiarities of their choice of profession are identified. It is proved that those young people who are involved in professional activity demonstrate successful psychological adaptation.

The importance of the topic – study of coping behavior in the process of adaptation – is determined by the necessity to understand deeper mental defense mechanisms against stress in different situations. The goal of the research is to identify the specifics of the coping strategies of Vietnamese and Russian students in the process of their adaptation to a new situation while studying at a university. Four questionnaire methods were used in the research. 120 Vietnamese and Russian students from different faculties participated in a gender-equal sample represented in four subgroups aged 18–22: 30 young men from Vietnam, 30 girls from Vietnam, 30 young men from Russia, 30 girls From Russia (RUDN, Moscow). The results of the comparative analysis show that the level of confrontational copying, distancing, and seeking social support prevails among Vietnamese students. Russian young men demonstrate a low level of tension and the ability to control emotions. The strategy of accepting responsibility under extreme anxiety dominates among Vietnamese students. The probability of emotional stress development is higher among Russian students. The study has identified factor structures of test groups which indicate the connection between emotions and stress formation in difficult situations for Russian and Vietnamese students and revealed a high degree of copying aimed at distraction and avoidance of problems, a responsible and positive solution to the problem for Vietnamese students. Russian students have a predominance of coping aimed at distraction and avoidance of a stressful situation through communication. The specified features can be taken into account in the development of psychological assistance programs to improve the level of adaptation of Vietnamese and Russian students in a Russian university with international students.

Within the sociocognitive approach, the religious norms are determined as the subjective representations of the results of a person’s cognitive processing of the information about the religious phenomena presented in the culture. The religious norms are present within the everyday life language and expressed as the normative judgments reflecting the correctness and preference of social behavior and way of thinking. Certain normative judgments do not exist independently of each other but form the clusters that can be considered as the kinds of social norms.  

The goal of presented empirical research is to determine the kinds of religious norms expressed as a normative judgment. The study tests a hypothesis about a verbal expression in the form of normative judgments of the enculturated religious experience. As the data-collection method, the author uses the semi-structured interviews method determining the judgments about the norms in the context of the evaluative attitude. The evaluations are expressed in respect of the objects that are the bearers of desired norms or adhere to them. The elements of phenomenography and matrix analysis serve as the method of qualitative data analysis.   

The study allows speaking about the existence of at least four kinds of religious norms: responsibility attribution norms, social interaction norms, interpersonal interaction norms, and self-introduction norms. Thus, the religious norms form a fragment of the individual psychological reality caused by the patterns of social behavior determining its acceptability and usefulness. 

Quoted results and conclusions offer the opportunities for the study of confessional differences when determining the types and inner content of the religious norms representations. Moreover, the results of the study highlight the necessity to specify the functions of religious norms representations in the context of social adaptation.

This paper is the theoretical analysis of the issue of interrelations of ego and non-ego boundaries of a person and the determination of its behavior in the situation of subjective uncertainty. The goal of the research is the evaluation of the role of ego boundary in the determination of behavior of a person in the subjective uncertain environment. The analysis of behavior determination variants includes its self-determination, non-self-determination, and indetermination in the uncertainty of the future. It is shown, that the everyday behavior determination is a composition of self-determination and non-self-determination in their flexible individual proportions. The uncertainty situation as the bifurcation point determines the occurrence of a person borderline state when the habitual determination is out and the ego boundary system – dynamic (changing), open (in dialogical relations of a person with the world and oneself), functional (ego delimitation) – becomes tense. In this situation, the limitations are tested, ego and non-ego boundaries are recognized and reconstructed in a new environment. The author proves that the overcoming of actual boundaries and blocking of boundaries of new possibilities depend on the specificity of functioning of the boundaries that determines the causality locus as the orientation dominance within behavior and causal orientation as the dominant motivation (according to E. Deci and R. Ryan theory), the nature of behavior determination and the way of a person’s reaction to the uncertainty challenge. The result of the author’s analysis is the typology of behavior determination schemes with respect to the forms of experience of subjective uncertainty (positive, negative), ego delimitation variant (constructive, destructive, and deficient) and causal orientation (autonomic internal, controlled external, and impersonal amotivating). The author comes to the conclusion about the relations between the uncertainty experience and individual-typical compositions of behavior determination, which can change unexpectedly under the influence of uncertainty factor. Under these circumstances, the role of ego boundaries as a system is determined by their functions implementation that determines causal orientation, behavior determination nature, and the way of a person’s reaction to the uncertainty.