Algorithmic Thinking: Psychological Essence and Socio-Economic Consequences

Abstract

At present the professors of universities and Secondary Vocational Education, as well as, psychologists who study the psychological state of students note the total predominance of students in algorithmic thinking. In training and subsequent practical activity algorithmic thinking is quite suitable for solving standard problems, but if it is necessary to make a decision in a non-standard situation, the educational psychological professional activity of people with this form of thinking is completely paralyzed. The purpose of the study is to investigate the fundamental educational reasons for the widespread algorithmic thinking in the younger generation, as well as the socio-economic consequences of this phenomenon. The study used the regularities of productive thinking, determined by the presence of the problem situation. The following methods were used in the course of the study: generalizing analysis of scientific and scientific-methodological literature on the problems of development of different types of thinking, analytical reviews of statistical data; a form of analysis through synthesis that allows to identify new, non-protruding properties of the problem situation directly in our perception. The study revealed that algorithmic thinking is developed and consolidated at the stage of schooling as a result of “technologies for the formation of universal educational actions”, which are the one of the key concepts in the system-activity approach that underlies federal state educational standards. It is proved that the socio-economic consequence of the phenomenon under study is a statistically fixed expanding trend of a massive decrease in the share of qualified specialists in all spheres of the Russian economy. According to the forecast of experts, also voiced by President Vladimir Putin, the shortage of qualified personnel will lead in the coming years to losses in the Russian economy, amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. A problem of this scale and complexity can be solved only at the level of a political or social order.