ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 38 (Nº 60) Year 2017. Páge 32

Research of students’ cognitive activity

Investigación de la actividad cognitiva de los estudiantes

Tatyana Nikolaevna BOCHKAREVA 1; Elvir Munirovich AKHMETSHIN 2; Anna Leonidovna KOROTKOVA 3; Nataliya Leonidovna LYITKINA 4; Ilshat Sahiyatullovich NASIPOV 5; Albina Gabitovna KHALIULLINA 6

Received: 02/10/2017 • Approved: 30/10/2017

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology of Research

3. Results Sample of research

4. Data Analysis

Acknowledgements

References

1. Introduction

1.1. Problem of Research

The growth of professional competence and increased quality of the university training are closely connected with the interest to the learning process. The training experience has shown that a student remains in most cases passive in-class. Effectiveness of the learning process increases only if all the factors affecting students’ cognitive activity are taken into account.

Students’ cognitive activity is affected by the following three groups of factors: organizational, psychological and pedagogical. We included such factors as the level of pre-university training and the status of the teaching-and-educational process within the higher educational system itself into the group of the organizational factors.

1.2. Research Focus

Varying levels of pre-university training are mostly tangible during the period of adaptation to a higher educational institution. Pre-university training incorporates a wide range of educational services, such as attending preliminary courses where a secondary school student gets familiarized with the educational profile of interest. During the adaptation to a higher educational institution lots of students feel the need to close their school learning gaps, to get used to the new training system, and get acquainted with the higher educational institution, its departments and the chosen field of study. A student’s inability to fix their school learning gaps by themselves results in their expulsion that reaches the average rate of 9.2% in the first year of study (Bakhaeva, 2010).

We included the regional needs of the labour market in the organizational factors. The students need to be competent and competitive with the regional specialists, which positively motivates them in their subsequent education. The graduate employment rate is presently used as a university competitiveness criterion (Merzon et al., 2015). An employer is interested in a professionally competent graduate, able to think outside the box in a dynamic environment, work in a team, make measured and competent decisions and be communicative (Sozontova et al., 2015; Sattarova, and Gabidullina, 2015; Falyakhov and Shatunova, 2015; Korableva and Kalimullina, 2014; Korableva et al., 2017a).

We included the following into the group of psychological factors: student intellectual abilities, motivation for cognitive activity, intra-group student-student and student-teacher relations.

We referred the following to the group of pedagogical factors: a set of traditional and innovative modes of study; a combination of various academic performance assessment methods; a combination of the in-class and out-of-class work (Osadchy and Akhmetshin, 2015b; Askhamov et. al., 2016; Korilova and Magsumov, 2017; Korableva et al., 2017b; Gabidullina and Sattarova, 2015).

The educational process becomes interesting for a student from that very moment when they are provided with an opportunity to express their own judgment, analyze their friends’ answers, review scientific works, and get into discussions with teachers (Morova and Grunina, 2007). A sustained interest to the future profession will only be formed if a student has their own world-view, idea of the profession and of their role in it, and if the student is able to produce independent judgments and apply a creative approach (Osadchy and Akhmetshin, 2015a; Ibatova et al., 2016; Gabidullina, and Khaliullina, 2017).

The introduction of unconventional professional tasks and problems for the development of independent thinking enables to master the methods of analysis and synthesis, learn how to compare and generalize, identify links between objects, phenomena and events in the professional activity (Akhmetov et al., 2015; Sedov, 2015; Korableva and Kalimullina, 2016; Magsumov, 2014).

2. Methodology of Research

2.1. General Background of Research

Analysis of the scientific literature has made it possible to determine three levels of cognitive activity: reproductive, partially exploratory and research.

To research the dynamics of university students’ cognitive activity in the educational process there were developed criteria to measure the students’ cognitive activity.

To measure the students’ cognitive activity level within the educational process there were developed the students’ cognitive activity measurement criteria. The criteria are as follows: attitude to the object of cognition, focus of learning and question formulation mindset and search of the modes of action. Cognitive activity development levels are the following: reproductive, partially exploratory and research (Bakhaeva, 2010).

To study self-assessment of professional competence by a student seeking a bachelor’s degree we used a questionnaire that enables to determine the following indicators:

– knowledge of the object of professional activity;

– knowledge of the operating procedures applicable in the field of the future profession;

– knowledge of special features of work in their future professional activity, knowledge of the theoretical bases for their professional activity;

– diagnosing the level of professional competence development;

– knowledge of technology for their professional activity;

– ability to use research methods, knowledge of scientific achievements in the field of professional activity, of the legal framework and documentation; 

– ability to generalize one’s own experience;

– knowledge of methods and ways of self-education.

A research has been made on the basis of two higher educational establishments. The students of the University of Management of Tatar Institute of Business Cooperation (UMTIBC) and Elabuga Institute of Kazan Federal University (ЕI KFU) took part in the experiment. Among the participants were first- and fourth-year students of the Bachelor’s Degree Courses. The number of students is shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Number of 1 and 4 Bachelor’s Degree Courses Students Who Participated in the Experiment*

*The total number of students: 218

3. Sample of research

A one-semester long experiment with 4th year students of two educational establishments was organized to research the influence of cognitive activity on self-assessment of their professional competence.

The hypothesis of the study is that cognitive activity influences the level of professional competence if the following pedagogical conditions have been created: a conscious attitude of students to the future profession has been formed, their cognitive activity aimed at acquiring professional competences has been accelerated; a program for the development of cognitive activity as a factor for forming students’ professional competence has been created within the framework of which  the object of the would-be specialist`s activity is intensively studied; the modular and rating system for training quality assessment is used.

The formative stage of the experiment was conducted with the students as an optional 2-hour a week course on the basis of the facilities of UMTIBC and EI KFU under the “Program for Development of Students’ Cognitive Activity as a Professional Competence Forming Factor”. The total number of hours under this program was 36.

The following aspects were analyzed in the course of students’ studying process: a focus on enhancement of the students’ cognitive activity, a desire to do work well, regularity of homework completion and students’ independence level.

The underlying assumption of our work was that the training quality assessment system  should facilitate regular and focused work of the students, make it possible to constantly monitor student academic performance, and, at the same time, to enable the students to monitor their achievements, thus causing the transfer of the student to a higher level of cognitive activity (Choshanov, 1996; Ganeev and Ganeeva, 2015).

The syllabus of “Program for Forming Professional Competence of Would-Be Specialists” Course is represented in Table 2.

Table 2
Syllabus of “Program for the Development of Cognitive Activity as a Factor
for Forming Students’ Professional Competence of the Would-be Specialists”

The goal of the special course lies in forming student perceptions about the future job, functions in the labor activities and the role of professional competences in the maturing and development of a new specialist.

The objectives of the special course include students’ acquisition of knowledge on a system of professional competences; systematization of knowledge about the functions of labor activities based on the professional competence system; to acquire the skills of building a competence system (Gabidullina, 2014; Gabidullina et al., 2017).

The training quality assessment system we used consists in a complex of organizational and managerial as well as training and methodological measures to improve the efficiency of the studying process and to enhance the objectivity and credibility of assessing the student training level in the process of mastering the professional competences.

The essence of the experiment consisted in enhancing student motivation to active and consistent educational work over the whole semester aimed at learning the fundamentals of professional knowledge and skills; in teaching students regular consistent unsupervised work by increasing their interest to the accumulation of professional knowledge, to self-development and self-realization; identifying perspective directions for improvement of training-and-methodological as well as scientific-and-methodological work of teachers; in cancelling average indicators for the assessment of student performance which enable to get cumulative information about their personal achievements. During the experiment, we implemented a mechanism of the cognitive activity development, defined pedagogical conditions for the formation of professional competence of the would-be bachelors (Bochkareva and Bakhaeva, 2014).

3.1. Instrument and Procedures

Type of experiment by time of year: one-semester, i.e. lasting during one semester, from September to January.

Type of experiment by structure: comprehensive.

Type of experiment by organization: natural.

Type of experiment by goals: formative.

Type of experiment by publicity degree: open-access.

The student (would-be bachelor) professional competence self-assessment method was used to research the students, which resulted in identifying the following (Table 3).

Table 3
Average Values of Mastering Professional Competences by Fourth-Year
Students Before and After the Experiment (expressed as percentage)

Note: tEmp – empirical value of the Student’s criterion.

According to Table 1 it is clear that the average self-assessed value of mastering by UMTIBC and EI KFU students’ of professional competences UMTIBC and EI KFU significantly differs before and after the experiment (reliability of the Student’s criterion for level p≤0.01). Before the experiment the students of both universities noted that they were least competent in the matters related to the technology of professional activity (21%; 26.1%); diagnosing the development level of professional competence (26.3%; 28.6%); knowledge of the object of professional activity (31.6%; 32%).

After the experiment, students of both universities demonstrated better results than before the experiment by all parameters. On the whole, the average percentage of the students’ professional competence self-assessment rose after the experiment.

The correlation analysis of the cognitive activity level and the student self-assessment of professional competence identified the following (Table 4).

Table 4
Spearman's Coefficient of Cognitive Activity with the
Student Professional Competence Indicators

Note: * – Correlation between А and В is statistically important for the level р=0.01.

The undertaken analysis uncovered a correlation between the students’ cognitive activity and the knowledge of methods of work in the sphere of future profession; knowledge of the professional activity technology; knowledge of methods of the research work, knowledge of scientific achievements in the field of professional activity, of the legal framework and documentation; ability to generalize one’s own experience; knowledge of methods and ways of self-education.

The analysis of average group values of the first- and fourth-year students’ cognitive activity shows a general trend of ongoing changes caused by the educative process in the higher educational establishment (Table 5).

Table 5
Cognitive Activity Levels Development Dynamics

The organization of a system for boosting cognitive activity in the educative process of the higher educational establishments resulted in a significant rise in the number of students with a research level of cognitive activity (14.9%; 12.2%) and a significant decrease in the number of students with a reproductive level (34.4%; 38.6%).

4. Data Analysis

The studies by L.P. Aristova, L.I. Bozhovich, N.F. Dobrynin, А.N. Leontyev, А.А. Smirnov and others for defining the notion of cognitive activity show a close connection between innate readiness of a personality for intellectual activity and intensive manifestation of that readiness.

The theoretical analysis of scientific literature in the research problem (Tararina et al., 2015) enabled us to elaborate the cognitive activity development mechanism that forms and develops the students’ professional competence and that includes the following components (Figure 1).

Figure 1
Mechanism of formation of the bachelors’ cognitive activity
in the professional competence structure (Bakhaeva, 2010)

The cognitive activity development mechanism created by us allows to define pedagogical conditions required for forming professional competence of the would-be bachelors:

– creating a conscientious attitude to knowledge acquisition in the higher educational establishment’s educative process based on the development of student cognitive activity;

– creating a model of future professional activity in the course of studying in the higher educational establishment, where the object is “approximated” to a student and where there exists a direct possibility to intensively build professional competences and study of the specificity of labor;

– application of different variable education quality assessment forms, including a module rating system.

Thus, we consider cognitive activity to be a process of cognition that is intellectual and emotional in nature, a manifestation of interest and aptitude for learning, completion of tasks, a need for practical and intellectual activities that define the dynamics of professional competences. Existence of cognitive activity becomes a mechanism for successful mastering of the curriculum; it characterizes effective organization of the educational process in a higher educational establishment, while its lack is indicative of shortcomings in the organization of the training process.

Because of the study undertaken by us, we have obtained a positive dynamics of the undergraduate students’ cognitive activity and professional competence, defined the mechanism of the cognitive activity influence on the students’ professional competence, and determined pedagogical conditions ensuring such influence.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the research grant of Kazan Federal University.

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1. Candidate of pedagogical sciences. Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Elabuga Institute of KFU, Russian Federation, Tatarstan, 423604, Elabuga, Kazanskaya Street, 89.E-mail: tatyana-n-boch@mail.ru

2. (corresponding author) Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Elabuga Institute of KFU, Russian Federation, Tatarstan, 423604, Elabuga, Kazanskaya Street, 89. E-mail: elvir@mail.ru

3. Candidate of pedagogical sciences. The University of Management of Tatar Institute of Business Cooperation, Russian Federation, Tatarstan, 420012, Kazan, Mushtari Street, 13. E-mail: anuticc@mail.ru

4. Candidate of pedagogical sciences. The University of Management of Tatar Institute of Business Cooperation, Russian Federation, Tatarstan, 420012, Kazan, Mushtari Street, 13 E-mail: lytkina60@bk.ru

5. Doctor of philological Sciences, Professor, head of the Department of Tatar language and literature, Bashkir state pedagogical University named after M.Akmulla, Russian Federation, 450000, October Revolution st., 3 A, Ufa, Bashkortostan. e-mail:  nasipov2004@rambler.ru

6. PhD, associate professor, Department of Tatar language and literature, Bashkir state pedagogical University named after M.Akmulla, Russian Federation, 450000, October Revolution st., 3 A, Ufa, Bashkortostan. e-mail:  ahmali76@mail.ru