Formation of Professional Culture of Experts in Public Relations in the Sphere of Physical Culture and Sport within Extracurricular Practice

Фотографии: 

ˑ: 

A.S. Dubinin, senior lecturer of the department of philology and sports journalism
Russian state university of physical culture, sport, youth and tourism, Moscow

Key words: educational model, professional culture, physical culture, public relations and PR.

Relevance. Organization of extracurricular field studies of university students has always been one of the relevant issues of education. For many years researchers have been discussing the problem of this complex and multi-dimensional process to be focused on the stimulation of the student initiative and creation of conditions for development of their creative and professional abilities. It is no secret that field studies are often formal and just duplicate the tasks the student used to perform during in-class learning. Quite often the purpose of work during field studies is repetition and consolidation of what has been learnt at classes before.

But it is during field studies, namely when modeling future professional activity, when it is possible to form and develop professional culture in general and professional competences in particular. These are properly organized extracurricular field studies that promote not only creating the professional context for forming professional behavioral patterns, bud also designing multiple spontaneous situations, inducing students make knowledge- and competence-based solutions. We are sure that field studies of students should be among the priorities in the system of higher professional education. Extracurricular activity, during which professional situations that can happen with future graduates are modeled, will sometimes be more important than in-class learning. Today this problem is of particular importance, when higher professional education, being in the process of transition to a two-tier system, on the one hand, is forced to reduce the number of classroom hours, on the other hand, changes the main focus of goal-setting to formation of competencies, which is possible only in case of the developed system of field studies.

The purpose of the study was to elaborate and validate the educational model of formation of professional culture of students specializing in "Public relations and PR".

Research methods. The range of methods used in the study was as follows: 1) analysis of special literature; 2) Study and generalization of teaching experience; 3) Pedagogical monitoring; 4) Educational experiment (used to assess the effectiveness of the educational technology we subjected).  

Results and discussion. The goal of the educational technology of organization of extracurricular field studies designed within the framework of the study was training of professional culture of students of the specialization "Public relations and PR".

In our study we define field studies as a form of organization of students’ learning activity with regard to mastering generalized modes of action, self-development of students thanks to resolving specific educational professional objectives, set by a teacher, via learning activities. This type of activity is subjective, active, substantial, purposeful and conscious. On the basis of this definition, we can say that in our case the students, who work in the editorial office of the corporate university newspaper "Na Start! (Engl. "Ready!”) and the web site of RSUPCSYT, on the one hand, are students (when carrying out the assignments given by editors regarding collection of information for articles, reports, interviews, etc.) and, on the other hand, they act as experts according to objectives and essence of the work they do [2].

In order to form professional culture of students one is to use a fundamentally new approach to the organization of extracurricular field studies: introducing new interactive learning technologies to the educational process, applying various information and communication technologies, improving monitoring of students' work, reorganizing the teacher’s academic load. In the course of development of field studies intended to form professional culture of students of the specialization "Public relations and PR" four methodological approaches have been considered and applied:

  1. The system approach helps to explore and cover the entire process of training of future specialists of the specialization "Public relations and PR" as an integral set of interrelated elements.
  2. The integrative approach presupposes consistency and interpenetration between professional, humanity, scientific and special academic disciplines involved in the formation of professional culture of students.
  3. The personality-centered approach consists in arranging the educational process in order to promote student's self-fulfillment.
  4. The qualitative approach helps to evaluate effectiveness of the educational process and the quality of training of future specialists.

Based on the adduced theoretical propositions we have developed an educational model of formation of professional culture, which includes six sections: 1) procedural; 2) organizational and preparatory; 3) structural; 4) level-based; 5) criterion-oriented; 6) section of conditions of teaching organization [5].

In this model, the examined process is subject to comprehensive consideration, with systematically arranged directions and conditions of organization of teaching, which influence the formation of students’ professional culture. This process can be represented as correlated and interdependent subsystems by means of which professional culture of students is formed by rule and line. These subsystems are included in the sections of the educational model of formation of students’ professional culture which has been designed in the study.

As a result of the study, the fundamental principles of the concept of the educational model, based on the simulation of future work of students of the specialization "Public relations and PR" and aimed at forming of professional culture of future specialists, were as follows:

  1. The formation of clusters of professional culture is a phased multi-level process, which involves a qualitative change of professional competences within extracurricular field studies, resulting in their agreement.
  2. The formation of students’ professional culture is affected by a number of external and internal factors. The external factors are: the essence of professional environment in conjunction with didactic forms, as well as social environment (family, work, learning and other groups). The internal factors include individual personality traits (temperament, outlook, interests, motives) and mental characteristics (intelligence, specialized professional).
  3. Extracurricular field studies were considered in terms of the following components: applied (practical studies, professional situations, hands-on projects), information-communicative, which is an interpretation of the learning situation as a communicative act and gnostic (student's ability to form and test hypotheses, to spot contradictions, to critically evaluate the results) [2].
  4. We have identified four levels in the process of formation of professional culture of future specialists, which are: introductory level - introducing a student to the future professional activity; reproductive level – understanding of professional guidelines in the learning process, acquiring indispensable knowledge and skills in humanities and professional disciplines, as well as major subjects (at this stage, the student should be able to apply his theoretical knowledge and practical skills during field studies); productive level - formed personal professional attitude, orientations of professional education aimed at developing self-learning experience of the future specialist on the basis of existing competencies; creative level – developed intellectual activity, student is capable of creative statement of professional problem and searching for its solution [1].
  5. The results of development of clusters of professional culture of students of the specialization "Public relations and PR" are estimated based on the integral criterion comprising as the main components motivation (focus of professional interests, striving for making a career in this area); personal-psychological (initiative, stress tolerance, responsibility) and specialized professional (professional skills, professional experience, self-education skills) criteria that help to monitor changes in the results of extracurricular field studies of students [5].
  6. The qualitative formation of professional culture of the future specialists in public relations and PR is provided by objective and subjective organizational and pedagogical conditions. The main objective conditions include: information and methodological support; emotional environment; a variety of teaching methods, educational principles and accessibility of methodologies [3]. The main subjective conditions include the development of sustained motivation for learning; internal readiness to assimilate the profession, developed personal professional attitude.

Conclusions. The stated provisions have conceptually defined the sections of the proposed educational model of formation of professional culture. In turn, the educational model of formation of professional culture of the future graduates of the specialization "Public relations and PR" for the sphere of physical culture and sport included in its structure the necessary conditions for the effective implementation of this model:

- Procedural section reflects the demands of the market, the purpose and outcome of working with students;

- Organizational and preparatory section includes requirements to students, as well as internal and external factors affecting the formation of professional culture of students of the specialization "Public relations and PR";

- The structural section involves elements of extracurricular field studies (simulation of future professional activities within the framework of work in the editorial office of the corporate newspaper of the university of physical culture and sport);

- The level-based section shows the levels of professional competency of students;

- The evaluation section shows the evaluation criteria of the outcome of formation of clusters of professional culture;

- The section of conditions of teaching organization includes educational conditions of formation of professional competences.

The model we suggested laid the basis of the educational technology of formation of professional culture of students specializing in “Public relations and PR” in the university of physical culture and sport, that was implemented within the range of major professional disciplines (for example, “Principal activities of sports press service”, “The basics of journalist's creative work”, “Activities and essential documents of press service”) on the department of philology and sports journalism of Russian state university of physical culture, sport, youth and tourism.

 

References

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  2. Verbitsky, A.A. Competency building approach and the theory of contextual learning: Proceedings of the 4th meeting of the methodological seminar, November, 16 2004. / A.A. Verbitsky. – Moscow: Publishing center of problems of quality of expert training, 2004. – 84 P. (In Russian)
  3. Dzigua, D.V. Formation of professional competences of specialists in public relations in the sports university information space: Ph.D. thesis / D.V. Dzigua. – Moscow: RSUPhCST, 2008. (In Russian)
  4. Kuznetsova, A.G. Development of the methodology of system approach in domestic pedagogics: monograph / A.G. Kuznetsova. - Khabarovsk: Publ. h-se of KhTIRFE TP, 2003. (In Russian)
  5. Saksonova, J.I. Formation of professional competences of a future specialist / J.I. Saksonova, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences // Sovremennye naukoemkie tekhnologii. – 2007. – № 4. – P. 92-93. (In Russian)