Assessment of subject and methodological competencies of graduates of a pedagogical university — future teachers of informatics: Deficits and prospects

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the assessment results of pedagogical university graduates’ subject and methodological competencies to determine the professional deficits of future informatics teachers, their readiness for professional pedagogical activity, building continuity between the training of pedagogical personnel and the subsequent support of graduates of a pedagogical university in professional activities in the creation and implementation of a continuous system of pedagogical education. 35 students of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Voronezh State Pedagogical University took part in the study in 2022: 10 graduates in the field of training 44.03.01 “Pedagogical Education” (profile “Informatics and ICT”) and 25 graduates in the field of training 44.03.05 “Pedagogical Education (with two training profiles)” (profiles “Mathematics”, “Informatics”). The maximum number of primary points for diagnostic work is 38 points. In the course of the study, the graduates performed a diagnostic work consisting of 16 tasks: the first part of the work evaluated subject competencies, and the second part assessed methodological competencies of future teachers of informatics. The analysis of the obtained results was carried out using the single-sample Kolmogorov—Smirnov test, the Student’s t-test for independent samples. The results were systematized and visualized in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets; statistical analysis was carried out in the SPSS Statistics 26.0 software. The results of the study indicate that the majority of graduates of the pedagogical university, future teachers of informatics, do not reach the basic level of formation of subject and methodological competencies and that graduates have deficits in subject and methodological training. Graduates of the 4th year of “Pedagogical Education” (profile “Informatics and ICT”) demonstrated higher results compared to graduates of the 5th year of “Pedagogical Education (with two training profiles)” (profile “Mathematics”, “Informatics”). The results of the study show the need for changes in the content and organization of the educational process of training future informatics teachers at the pedagogical university. The obtained results may be of interest to university teachers who train future teachers of informatics, institutes of education development, and centers of continuous improvement of pedagogical skills, providing advanced training and professional retraining of teachers of informatics.