Competency building approach in vocational training of Bachelor of Physical Education during practical training

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Dr.Hab., Professor L.M. Kulikova1
Dr.Hab., Professor L.M. Kulikov1
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

 

Keywords: competency building approach, competence, competency, professional competency, practical training, bachelor.

Introduction. The basis of competency building approach shows itself in the new ways of educational and methodological support; interdisciplinary focus; new evaluation tools; new teacher's functions and roles; higher level of students' responsibility; improved organizational forms; introduction of a credit system; the interaction with labor-market; the student-oriented educational process and its own framework of categories.

When considering competency based education it is necessary to distinguish the concepts "competence" and "competency" which are the basic components of the competency building approach to education.

Foreign researchers in the field of psychology and pedagogics have been developing the concepts "competency" and "competence" for a long time already. So, according to dictionary of foreign words "to be competent" means "to have authorities of some institution or a person, or to deal with a particular range of issues": Competent (fr.) – authorized, empowered; Competents (lat.) – suitable, adequate; Competere (lat.) – to demand, to comply, to be valid; Competence (eng.) – ability [5, p. 247].

Proceeding from literary sources analysis, the term "competency" is used in the American school in relation to characteristics of a person (behavioral aspect) – "behaviorism" (eng. "behavior"). English pedagogical school uses only the term "competence", which means the following depending on a context: 1) ability, skill; 2) competency; 3) competence itself.

According to "Tuning Project" competence includes "knowledge and understanding" (theoretical knowledge in an academic area, the ability to know and understand things); "knowledge of what to do" (practical and operational application of knowledge in specific situations) and the "knowledge of how to live" (life values as an integral part of the ways of perceiving of reality and coexisting with others in a particular social context). The concepts "competence" and "competency" are differentiated as follows [2].

"Competence is a motivated ability to do something successfully or efficiently; the procedural and axiological knowledge about some subject area; a cognitive basis of competency; a potential ability to do something".

"Competency is "using knowledge – competence in action", that is a situational category that characterizes willingness of an individual to act in specific professional situations; the integrated representation of personality trait that characterizes the willingness to perform certain activity" [2, p. 8-9].

Word analysis of the term "competency" has shown that similar definitions of it can be found in domestic sources. The concept of "competency" is often treated either as a synonym of professionalism or as one of its components. Thus, according to the Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language by D.N. Ushakov "competence" is a range of issues or phenomena in which a person possesses credibility, knowledge and experience. Consequently, a person "competent" in a particular area is "knowledgeable, a recognized expert in a particular matter; the one who has the competence, a full-fledged specialist" [6, p. 623].

The majority of scientists consider competence as an ability to detect relationships between knowledge and a situation, that is to apply knowledge and skills for problem-solving. In other words, competence is what produces skill, action.

While analyzing modern approaches to designing basic educational programs of higher professional education, in which the federal state educational standards of higher professional education of new generation are implemented in the competency building format, R.N. Azarova writes that the competence/competency as a result of education involves mastering and learning of activities in the context of globalization and blurring organizational and professional boundaries [1].

According to the glossary of terms of the federal state educational standards of higher professional education the definition of "competence" basically repeats the above wordings of R.N. Azarova, I.G. Galyamina and E.F. Zeyer, et al.: "...competence is the ability to apply knowledge, skills and personality traits for successful performance in a certain area". In addition, the federal state educational standard in the major "Physical Education" includes the following competences: common cultural competences, which include socio-personal, general scientific and instrumental competences; professional competences which are being learnt by students during pedagogical, coaching, recreational, organizational and managerial, scientific research and educational activities.

In the theory of teacher education the term "professional competency" means a set of professionally specified requirements for a specialist and is used with such terms as "qualifying characteristics", "professional preparedness" and "professionalism". The latter usually refers to possession of a system of special knowledge and skills, used to fulfill the tasks in accordance with most common and, at the same time, reasonable criteria in respect to their efficiency.

According to the majority of authors (Yu.V. Vardanyan, I.A. Zimnyaya, E.F. Zeyer, A.V. Khutorskoy, et al.), professional competence comprises professional knowledge and skills, as well as methods of performing professional activities. Professional competence in this case is regarded as one of the components of professionalism, which consists of rather different indicators such as professional satisfaction and professional success.

Based on the definition of the term "professional competency" in the "Entsiklopediya professional'nogo obrazovaniya" (Encyclopedia of professional education) [7, p. 315], which is understood as an integral characteristic of business qualities and personality traits of a specialist, showing the level of knowledge and skills sufficient to accomplish the purpose of this type of activity, E.F. Zeyer considers professional competency as an integrative personality trait, which includes a system of necessary knowledge, skills and abilities sufficient to perform a certain type of professional activity [3, p. 194].

Regarding the professional competency we allocate general scientific and research competences and special professional competences related to coach's professional activity in a particular sport.

All the above confirms the necessity to raise the requirements to the quality of training and to practical orientation of professional training of graduates of physical culture universities, and to accept training of well-educated bachelors with regard to competency building approach as the main objective.

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of formation of professional competency of bachelors in the course of practical training with regard to the competency building approach.

Materials and methods. The experiment was conducted during practical training with 127 bachelors in "Physical Education" of the specialization "Sport training in selected sport" involved in it.

Professional competences are the main criteria in the study, since we define the bachelors' professional pedagogical training as the purpose of the entire system of vocational training and as a process and a result of creative assimilation of knowledge and acquisition of professional competences during practical training.

The level of development of bachelors' professional competency was estimated according to the professional competences stipulated in the federal state educational standard:

─ the ability to implement a system of qualification and sports orientation in selected sports (PC – 10);

─ the ability to develop operational plans and specific training programs in the field of children's and youth sport (PC – 11);

─ the ability to conduct training sessions in chosen sport in the field of children's and youth sport (PC – 12);

─ the ability to organize and carry out mass sports activities and competitions (PC – 20);

─ the ability to conduct scientific research to determine the effectiveness of different aspects of activity in the sphere of physical culture and sport and to generalize and draw conclusions (PC – 26);

─ the ability to promote sports activities among children (PC – 29);

─ the financial document creation ability in the sphere of physical culture and sport (PC – 23).

The estimation was conducted according to the indicators expressed in points: excellent – 3, good skill level – 2, poor skill level – 1, incompetent – 0.

The correlation of the indicators with the criteria of competency formation: 100-75 % – optimal, 74-55 % – acceptable, 54-25 % critical, 24% and below – unacceptable level [4].

Results and discussion. The competences related to "organizing and conducting of mass sports activities" and "research" competence were poorly developed in 2.4% of students and the promotion competence is poorly expressed in 37.2% of students. From 20.9% to 37.2% of the students had all professional competences, with the exception of the research competence - 13.9%. Most of the students (from 62.8% to 83.7%) had all the competences on the excellent level except the promotion competence (37.2 %). "Incompetent" students were not detected. Next the students' indicators were correlated with the criteria of competency formation. The critical level of professional competency was shown by 2.3% of the bachelors, acceptable – 30.2 % and optimal – 67.5 %. Therefore, in general the optimal and acceptable levels of formation of professional competency was shown by 97.7% of students and only 2.3 % showed the critical level, indicating high quality of bachelors' professional training in the framework of abovementioned project.

Conclusion. Bachelor training in compliance with the current requirements of employers entails searching for innovative forms of vocational training of students. Based on the objective necessity of transition to competency based education, the project "Formation of professional competency of the future specialist in the field of physical culture and sport within practical training" is being implemented in Ural State University of Physical Culture, which is an innovative approach that contributes to the enhancement of professional competency of bachelors, which has been confirmed by the results.

 

References

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Corresponding author: aikin-va@yandex.ru