A.A. Orlov, professor, Dr.Hab., Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Education, Head of the Department of Pedagogics
S.V. Pazukhina, Dr.Hab.
I.M. Turevskiy, professor, Dr.Hab.
Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University, Tula

Key words: competences assessment, value attitude, health, health saving, educational centerings, competency building approach, competences, physical training, reflection, psychological and educational conditions.

Relevance. Modern school education along with positive trends has a number of negative aspects among which dehumanization of training and education should be noted individually. This especially refers to schoolchildren with the weakened health. The focus on the formal result of the educational process is in conflict with the focus on health saving and development of pupil’s personality. All these, to some extent, affect the mental and social health of learners that often leads them to a risk group encouraging the development of deviant behavior models.

We believe that the changing nature of the teacher and student relationship in the educational process of the modern school may contribute to overcoming the identified negative trends. The initial type of the attitude to the student's personality and health saving is laid on the university stage of professionalization favorable for the formation of students’ value attitudes. However, the formation of such relationships at the future teachers is now performed spontaneously to a certain extent.

In the Federal state educational standard of higher vocational education on the 050100 “Pedagogical education” direction, the Bachelor qualification (degree), common cultural and professional competences are defined as new educational outcomes the formation of which will significantly contribute to the purposeful development of future teachers’ value attitude to the pupils’ personality and their health saving.

We proceed from the fact that the dominant feature in competence characteristic is not the knowledge, skills and know-how themselves but abilities to update them on the basis of their understanding of which knowledge and skills exactly are necessary to solve a specific practical professional problem [1]. The process of selecting and updating is largely determined by the future teacher’s value attitudes to the objectives of the professional activity. This fact conditions for the necessity to conduct a special work to form the value attitude to the development of learner’s personality at students of all OOP of the “Pedagogical education” specialization and to save his/her psychosomatic, physical and social health.

It is important to note that while implementing the competency building approach in the university educational process, the teacher changes from broadcasting of ready knowledge to the dialog interaction with students. As a result, fundamental transformations of the educational process undergo: from subject-centered education to the education as a means of formation of learners’ subjectivity, as a value and a resource for the development of personal, professional and social potential of students.

In the study [3] we defined more precisely the concept of “value attitude” and expanded the idea about its psychological structure from the position of the value and meaning theory. According to our idea, the future teacher’s value attitude to the schoolchild’s personality and his/her health saving is a stable integrative personality-and-semantic education reflecting the professional and personal significance of the value of pupil’s personality development, saving and strengthening of his/her psychosomatic, physical and social health for a future teacher. The value attitude includes four interrelated components: motivational-semantic, cognitive, emotional, and activity (behavioral).

Initially, we assumed that the leading component of am attitude is the motivational-semantic one which is not normally released in the traditional definitions of the attitude. Our supposition was based on the characteristic of pedagogical activity as an activity on analysis of educational situations, isolating and solving educational tasks aimed at the development of the pupil’s personality in the educational process. Understanding of the situation and determining of the pedagogical task are subjective and are largely based on the value orientations and attitudes of the teacher. That is why we identified the motivational-semantic component of the attitude as a system forming one. We correlated this component primarily with the level of development of humanistic centering of the future teacher. In modern pedagogy, the centering is understood as a selective orientation of the teacher on certain aspects of the educational process.

The most comprehensive concept of centering was disclosed in the works of A.B. Orlov [2]. The scientist showed that it is the character of the teachers’ centering that determines the diversity of their activities: style, attitudes, social perception, etc.

A.B. Orlov identified the following centering of the teacher: bureaucratic – centering on the interests of the school administration, of its leaders; conformist – centering on the interests of colleagues; authoritative – centering on schoolchildren’s parents’ interests, requests; egocentric – centering on their own interests, personal interests; methodical – centering on means of training and education; humanistic – centering on the interests of pupil’s development.

Starting from studying of the evaluation impact of professional competencies formation on the development of the future PE teachers’ values attitude to health saving of schoolchildren, we proceeded from the fact that it is the formation centering on interests of children at students that indicates the formation of their motivational-semantic component of the value attitude. The process of assessment in this case is an effective means to stimulate the development of this centering and a semantic aspect of the future teacher’s attitude to the child's personality as it included self-evaluation procedures that enabled students to record the degree of their personal and professional growth dynamics.

Research methods. To study centering of the teacher training university’s students, the questionnaire “Determination of the type of centering – educational activity orientation (according to A.B. Orlov)” was used in our study. At the initial stage of the study, an entry questionnaire was conducted. During the experiment in the classroom and in the period of teaching practice the method of observation, questionnaires (conversation, interview), the method of personal constructs by G. Kelly, tests etc. were used to examine types of relationships and their manifestations. The total list of the applied methods and their detailed description are presented in a special scientific publication [3].

Results. The study took place during the three-year organization of the experimental work (EW) with Bachelor’s degree course students of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport involving 128 people. It traditionally involved three stages: establishing, forming and controlling.

The initial diagnosis of students’ centerings has shown that the leading one of 50% of respondents is a cognitive centering (CogC), one of 42% – a conformal centering (ConC), one of 39% – a humanistic centering (HC), one of 26% – centering on the interests of the administration (AC). Egocentric centering (EC) and centering on the interests of parents (PC) were detected at 21% of future teachers (as students were able to make several choices in the survey, a grand total can be of more than 100%).

To study the significance of the differences in the testing feature in the samples, mean values and dispersions on each of the scales reflecting the type of future teachers’ centering were calculated; the Student t-test was calculated. It revealed that girls are more likely prone to an authoritarian centering than young men.

Whilst monitoring the activities and relationships of students with schoolchildren in practice, it was noted that the humanistic centering manifested in the value attitude in respect to schoolchildren, their physical, social and psychological health, it determines the future teachers’ direction for the learning process humanization, the implementation of a personality-centered approach. Pedagogical communication style of such trainees was characterized by the attention to children, the sustainable desire to build a communication in a dialogue form that is why these students, in particular, carried out work with pupils having a weakened physical health in the most successful way, favorable conditions for the saving and strengthening of their social and psychological health were created. Conformal centering domination was typical of future teachers valuing a lot their activity estimation by university methodologists and teachers of the school. Egocentric centering was observed at students with an inflated self-esteem. When conducting a lesson, they primarily demonstrated their capabilities, emphasized the superiority over children in knowledge, skills, physical strength, developed formalism in relationships with students, authoritarianism, etc. The centering on the interests of the administration was typical for future teachers with an unrealized individual potential because of their commitment and reproductive activity. They changed the style and methods of teaching if it was recommended "from above", while the transfer of techniques was not accompanied by their adaptation to the conditions of its own activities and to individual needs of students. The centering on the interests of parents appeared at the future teachers for senior year after the student’s teaching practice; it has never been met at undergraduate. This centering determined the future teachers’ increased attention to receiving the feedback from parents, to taking into account their opinions, to relying on the correlation of school and family as a condition for the effective schoolchildren education. Cognitive centering was typical of teachers of a theoretical type who primarily sought for improving educational training and education technology. These students gave psychologically sound, methodically well-built lessons. However, enthusiasm for "sharpening" teaching techniques often led to the fact that the students began to consider the schoolchild as a background on which they created a “perfect” lesson.

Analysis of the relationship of the centerings’ dominating types and future teachers’ attitude to the schoolchild’s personality’s types let us reveal the fact that the egocentric, conformal and authoritarian centerings were significant at students with a formal attitude to children. At the future teachers with an emotionally positive attitude towards children, the conformal, humanistic centerings and the one on the interests of the parents were dominated. Cognitive and authoritarian centerings prevailed at students with a cognitive attitude; the humanistic centering did at the future teachers with a value attitude.

In the correlation analysis of the obtained data, we have identified links between individual indicators of future teachers’ attitude to pupil’s personality. Significant positive correlations (p<0.05) between the humanistic centering and the future teachers’ ideas of the mechanisms of child’s development and health saving (r=0,719), the humanistic centering and the ability to identify (r=0,714) etc. were found. Negative correlations were found between the orientation on the educational-disciplinary interaction model (as opposed to student-centered) and students’ perceptions of the impact on the other person (r=-0,815), the orientation to training and educational-disciplinary model of interaction with the pupils and the significance of students for the future teacher (r=-0,852), the orientation to training and educational-disciplinary interaction model and the recognition of the learner’s personality autonomy and the mechanisms of self-actualization (r=-0,697), etc.

Our study revealed that the humanistic centering which is the basis of the future teachers’ value attitude to the pupil’s personality, took the average rank position (2-3 place) among all types of centerings at the students indicating the need for conducting a special work directed to its purposeful forming at the future teachers.

In the process of EW, we have developed a fund of estimating means, have established comprehensive objective testers with high reliability and predictive validity combining both quantitative and qualitative estimating tools developed on the base of the theory of educational estimates using innovative educational technologies. Self-evaluative technology of undergraduate students “input control” has also been proved and tested in practice in accordance with the Federal State Learning Standards of Higher Vocational Education; it has been proposed a scheme for determining the learner’s physical state for further computer processing [4]; stages of the special professional competences formation have been defined; a program of discipline testing and point- ranking system of educational outcomes evaluation have been made; scoring expert evaluation of the structure of lesson conducting during training practices has been created, etc; the diagnostic tools for studying of personality traits of the current undergraduate and certification, final control (final testing, state examination, defense of a graduation qualification thesis) were prepared.

The forming EW stage of the value attitude to pupils and their health saving’s development in future teachers-undergraduates of experimental groups of the Faculty of Physical Culture was as follows: in the educational process a number of psychological and educational conditions was introduced the implementation of which determined the launch of the psychological mechanisms that ensure the emergence and gradual transition of personal meanings of bachelor from situational formations to stable values.

We considered reflection as the most significant psychological mechanism of the future teachers’ value attitude development, thanks to which the analysis of the results of their own activities on the development of the pupil’s personality and his health saving is conducted. At the level of educational activity of a particular student, this mechanism was implemented in the self-assessment activities. Reflection is expressed in the ability of future teachers to enter the active research position in relation to their activities, to themselves as its subject with the purpose of critical analysis, comprehension and evaluation in terms of effectiveness of the pedagogical work for personal development and health saving of the pupil. The source of the origin and development of individual reflection is an educational and professional community of teachers, educators and students. We found that initially the reflection is generated by the necessity of mastering, change or development of activities. It occurs and is particularly evident in cases of future PE teachers’ emergence of difficulties in carrying out activities when its transformation becomes the subject of the reflective analysis. The objectification phase follows the problematization stage in a reflexive process, which involves a distant view on their activity, its assessment.

In the course of the experiment, we came to the conclusion that the professional reflection of future physical education teachers should be specially trained. It can be done by demonstrating the reflective analysis by teachers and by polylogue and discussions stimulation in the classroom requiring understanding, acceptance as well as criticism and evaluation. Understanding that participants of the discussion show, helps future teacher to see themselves through the eyes of other people, from outside. This creates educational space of reflection. Staying in there through communication contributes to problems identification, creation of the need for their solution, professional activity transformation, cooperation with fellow students, school teachers and teachers helping and demonstrating examples of productive reflective activity. Students' activity aimed at the acquisition of samples of reflective analysis requiring comprehension and understanding of the other person, encourages introspection, the process of self-improvement as well as the experience of reflection of their own activity makes it possible to analyze the activities of others. This is a bilateral process. The reflection is not just knowledge or understanding by the subject himself/herself but figuring out how others know and understand the reflective, his/her personality traits, emotional reactions, and ideas.

In order to launch the mechanism of reflection and teaching students reflective activity, we used a variety of estimating methods of future PE teachers’ professional competencies that were originally demonstrated and used in the educational and professional community (reflective dialogue, reflective polylogue, reflexive analysis (aloud)), and then were applied by students during individual work on self-evaluation: reflexive analysis (written), sheets of self-esteem of the teacher professional competence, self-evaluative diversity matrix, reflexive monitoring, etc.

To confirm the effectiveness of the experimental work, let us analyze the dynamics of centerings formation in bachelors in the field of physical education (Table).

Table. Student’s coefficient indicators for each type of centerings at establishing and control stages of the experiment in the control and experimental groups

Note: t=2.69 – P <0,05; t=4.05 – P <0,01

The data in Table 1 indicate that before the experiment the prevailing centerings of students of experimental (EG) and control (CG) groups were not significantly different in their orientation (see the results above). After the experiment, humanistic and conformal centerings formed at most of the future teachers of the experimental groups (EG) compared to their peers in the control ones (CG). Analyzing the intragroup dynamics of the centerings formation after the experiment, we can see that humanistic and conformal centerings are formed (P <0,05) in most of the bachelors of CG, while humanistic, conformal centerings and centering on the interests of the parents are formed in most of their peers from EG (P<0,01).

Conclusion. The study results have proved that the formation of the value attitude to the pupil’s personality and his/her health saving is the process of future PE teachers’ personalized meanings changing which includes three main stages: 1) the emergence of a personalized meaning; 2) the transformation of the personalized meaning into a more stable meaning structure – semantic sets; 3) the formation of the value ​​of the pupil’s personality development as a professional and personal value ​​of the future teacher and its implementation in practice as a value attitude.

The study revealed that there are correlations between the indicators of the future PE teachers’ attitude towards the pupil’s personality and his or her health, orientation and level of development of pedagogical centerings.

The study showed that the process of estimating of the students’ competences formation degree launches the leading mechanism of development of the value attitude to the child's personality –reflection. On the basis of self-assessment activities, future teachers’ own activities on the pupil’s personality development and his or her health saving are analyzed. Reflection is expressed in the ability of future teachers to identify positive results, as well as issues, risks and challenges in their work, to evaluate themselves as its subject with the aim of critical analysis, comprehension and evaluation in terms of effectiveness of the solution of professional and pedagogical goals on the development of personality and health savings of the pupil.

References

1. The competency building approach in higher vocational education / Edited by A.A. Orlov, V.V. Grachyov. – Tula: Publ. TSPU, 2012. – 261 P. (In Russian)
2. Orlov, A.B. Psychological centering in the professional work of the teacher // Novye issledovaniya v psikhologii i vozrastnoy fiziologii (New research in psychology and physiology of age). – 1989. – № 2. – P. 52-56. (In Russian)
3. Pazukhina, S.V. Diagnostics of the future teacher’s value attitude to children with weakened health: program and methodology of the empirical research / S.V. Pazukhina, Y.V. Panferova, S.A. Cherkasova; edited by S.V. Pazukhina. – Tula: Tula State University Publishing House, 2012. – 196 P. (In Russian)
4. Turevskiiy, I.M. Psychomotor structure and sensitive manifestations of motor abilities of children / I.M. Turevskiy, O.P. Panfilov // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury. – 2012. – № 12. – P. 38-41. (In Russian)