Dr.Hab., Professor L.V. Vedernikova¹
PhD, Associate Professor O.A. Povoroznyuk¹
PhD, Associate Professor S.A. Elantseva^1
1Tyumen State University, Ishim

Keywords: inclusive education, professional inclusive educational competency, professional inclusive educational competency rating criteria.

Background. The inclusive education model that has been lately actively implemented in modern school policies and practices is commonly acknowledged nowadays as the most promising institutional form to secure due education and socialisation of children with impairments. Inclusion generally refers to many genuine social aspects of schooling processes and is geared to establish a facilitating environment with its every ethical, material and educational domain customisable to educational needs of every child; the environment being created by a determined teamwork with due contribution from every process entity. The teammates should be enthusiastic and prepared to change together with the child and for the child’s sake – irrespective of whether or not the child is ordinary or “special” in some aspect(s) [1].

The very idea of inclusive education is closely correlated with the problems of the teachers’ professional educational competency that have long been subject to a variety of educational and psychological studies (by O.A. Abdulina, B.G. Ananyev, L.I. Dementiy, K.M. Duray-Novakova, M.I. Dyachenko, I.A. Zimniaya, V.S. Ilyin, L.A. Kandybovich, L.N. Korol, N.V. Kuzmina, N.D. Levitov, N.V. Mayorova, S.I. Rabikovich, S.L. Rubinstein, V.A. Slastionin, V.A. Yadov et al.). The professional educational competency is generally viewed by the researchers as a key category of professional pedagogics, a systemic personality socialisation measure and an integrated criterion of the individual professional educational fitness and mastery in the relevant domain. Every aspect of the professional inclusive educational competency of a physical education specialist is rated versus his/her missions and specific responsibilities in the professional inclusive education process [4].

Objective of the study was to make a comparative analysis of the inclusive educational competencies developed in the second- and fourth-year bachelor course students majoring in Physical Education of the Pedagogical Education field of study.

Methods and structure of the study. Having analysed the available psychological and pedagogical literature on the subject of professional competency of education specialists (including the studies by B.G. Ananyev, M.I. Dyachenko, N.V. Kuzmina, V.A. Slastionin, L.M. Mitina et al.) plus special pedagogical literature (A.A. Alekhina, A.D. Goneev, N.M. Nazarova, N.V. Ryabova), we came to the conclusion that the professional inclusive educational competency of an education specialist is to be rated using a variety of criteria grouped into values-rating, cognitive, functional and reflexive ones.

The values-rating criterion is designed to rate the humanistic values and ideals, conscientious internal position by the educator, his/her individual determination in the professional educational activity, self-development, self-culturing and creative self-fulfilment aspects.

The cognitive criterion refers to the genuine knowledge of the essence and mission of the modern inclusive education system with its specific requirements; psychological regularities; every aspect of the children’s age- and personality-specific developmental needs and tools; and the inclusive educational process design forms and methods.

The functional criterion refers to the nature of the professional practical missions of the educator, his/her operations and practical abilities to design and implement a variety of interaction forms to engage every potential contributor to the education process, including students, families, teammates, experts and managers.

The reflexive criterion implies the educator’s ability to make a retrospective analysis of his/her own teaching progress to rate and correct the education process, plus the ability to design and implement his/her own professional self-learning program to excel in the inclusive education domain.

The above criteria were applied to rate the students’ professional competency in the inclusive education technologies based on the O.S. Kuzmina’s Educators’ Professional Competencies Rating Test in the adapted version of our own design. We offered a questionnaire survey form including 36 questions grouped into the following four modules: values-rating, cognitive, functional and reflexive ones. The survey was performed at Ershov Ishim Pedagogical Institute affiliated with Tyumen State University. Subject to the study were the second- and fourth-year (pre-graduate) students (30 people in each group) majoring in Physical Education, with the study using a cross-sectional method as the key tool.

Study results and discussion. Let us analyse the problems detected by the questionnaire survey. The values-rating data were considered basic for a student’s professional position since it is the values-driven priorities that are considered by the modern axiology pivotal for a personality development process on the whole and for a professional education specialist competency building in particular – for the graduate educator being fully capable of preaching and implementing the genuine humanitarian tenets in the education and cultural process (as provided by L.P. Buyeva, D.A. Leontiev, M. Kagan). Every modern inclusive education practice is driven by the idea of each student’s individuality being accepted and appreciated, with the group welcoming children with impairments as their peers [4].

The survey data showed that most of the second-year future physical education teachers (83.3%) fail to understand and accept the key values of inclusive education and even hold to the opinion that the “inclusive education makes children with impairments exposed to potential negative attitudes from their healthy peers” and that the “children with impairments will be rather trained at special education institutions”. It should be noted that, striving to formulate their opinions on the inclusive education technology, most of the students (86.6%) failed to clearly spell out its positive and negative aspects. More than a half of the fourth-year students (63.3%), on the contrary, were found to accept the idea of inclusive education and the relevant values which they explained as follows: “Inclusive education helps cope with the psychological barriers separating people”, “it gives a chance to understand that all people are different” and “helps create a special educational environment reasonably customised to the individual traits of each child”. Furthermore, the fourth-year students were found to clearly realise the risks of inclusive education technologies being implemented at schools including the following: “inadequate competency of school teachers”, “potential detriment for the academic progress of healthy children”, “challenges of adaptation to teamwork of children with impairments”, “schools are still underequipped for this technology”, “it may well be an extra burden for the teachers”, and “the curriculum needs to be customised for different children”.

Due students’ awareness of the basics of the inclusive education technology, its concepts and successful implementation experience is one of the key missions of the future physical education teachers’ academic training process. The survey data demonstrated that the second-year students are in need of basic knowledge about the modern inclusive education practices – for only 10% of the group were found able to outline the basics of the inclusion process; 36.6% of the group showed some knowledge of the relevant provisions of the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”; 46.6% of the group failed to correctly respond the question “Do you know if the inclusive education is obligatory in Russia?”; and 56.6% of the second-year group were found unaware of the national or international practical experiences of an inclusive education model implementation in an education system. In the attempt to group the knowledge categories by the degrees of importance for inclusive education of the children with impairments, the second-year students ranked on top the knowledge of the children’s developmental needs versus specific health disorders. Ranked somewhat least important by the second-year students were the knowledge of the inclusion technology for children with impairments; and the conditions needed to be put in place for the progress of children with impairments.

The fourth-year (pre-graduate) students were mostly (93.3%) competent in the core ideas of inclusive education in general as follows: “the education system that implies healthy children and those with impairments being trained together”, “accessible education model customisable for children’s needs”; and in more specific terms as follows: “joint learning process for healthy children and children with impairments”. Almost every fourth-year student (96.6%) reported having read or discussed the relevant provisions of the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”; albeit only 10% of the group correctly responded the question “Do you know if the inclusive education is obligatory in Russia?” Most of the fourth-year students (76.6%) were found unaware of the national or international practical experiences of an inclusive education model implementation in the education system. In the attempt to group the knowledge categories by the degrees of importance for inclusive education of the children with impairments, the fourth-year students ranked on top the knowledge of educational cooperation models for the children’s teamwork. Ranked somewhat least important by the fourth-year students were the knowledge of the developmental aspects of children with impairments versus specific health deficiencies; and the practical inclusion technology and conditions needed to be put in place for the children with impairments.

Every aspect of the professional inclusive educational competency of a physical education specialist is rated versus his/her missions and responsibilities in the professional inclusive education process. The second-year students had serious problems trying to solve practical tasks in the Kuzmina’s test, as only 20% of the group showed some strive for understanding the tasks and finding solutions; whilst most of the group (80%) failed to solve the tasks.

It should be noted that most of the fourth-year pre-graduates (63.3%) also faced problems trying to solve practical tasks in the Kuzmina’s test, with only 36.6% of the group demonstrating their willingness to understand the tasks and find solutions.

Reflexive skills are considered pivotal for the educator’s competency in the professional inclusive self-education design and management process. When rating their own competencies in the adaptive education process programming, most of the second-year students (60%) rated them as insufficient; 13.3% of the group rated themselves high in this aspect; and 36.6% were undecided. The question “Are you prepared for a professional training to acquire inclusive educational competencies?” was responded negatively by 50% of the second-year group; positively by 30% of the group; and 20% were undecided.

The fourth-year students were mostly (73.3%) sceptical about their own competencies in the adaptive education process programming; 10% of the group rated themselves high in this aspect; and 16% were undecided rating their competencies. The question “Are you prepared for a professional training to acquire inclusive educational competencies?” was responded positively by 73.3% of the fourth-year group; negatively by 20% of the group; and 3.3% were undecided.

Conclusion

• The inclusive education related values of the surveyed students were found to significantly vary over the academic education process. Most of the second-year future physical education teachers (83.3%) reportedly fail to understand and accept the key values of the inclusive education model versus most the fourth-year pre-graduates (63,3%) who were found to acknowledge the need for the inclusive education and aware of its values, benefits and risks.
• The second-year students were found to lack basic knowledge of the inclusive education system versus the pre-graduate students who were able to describe the essence and benefits of inclusive education both in general and more specific terms. However, the common problem of the surveyed students is the lack of experience and practical knowledge of an inclusive education system design and operation.
• Most of the second- and fourth-year students faced problems trying to solve practical tasks in the Kuzmina’s test, with only 20% and 36.6% (respectively) demonstrating their willingness to understand the tasks and find solutions.
• Most of the second- and fourth-year students (60% and 73.3%, respectively) rated insufficient their own knowledge in the customisable inclusive education programming, with 30% and 73.3% (respectively) being reportedly prepared to master the basics of professional inclusive education at a special education establishment.

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Corresponding author: wedernikowa@mail.ru

Abstract

The article considers some issues of professional inclusive educational competency building in pedagogical university students majoring in Physical Education. The study generated a set of rating criteria giving the means to assess the professional inclusive educational competencies of the future physical education teachers making them prepared for inclusion of children with impairments in the education process.