Communicative Competence as a Component of the Professional Development of Psychology Students

Olga Batsylyeva,Nina Аtamanchuk,Svitlana Yalanska,Irina Puz,Nataliia Saiko,Volodymir Astakhov

doi:10.18662/brain/12.3/222

Abstract

The paper analyzes the issue of communicative competence as an element of the professional development of students studying psychology. It is established that in order to become a professional psychologist, a person should possess a number of essential psychological skills, such as communicative competence realized in the possession of verbal and nonverbal means of communication, ability to initiate and maintain contact. Based on this, the aim of the article was to conduct an empirical study on the communicative competence features as a component of the professional development of upcoming psychologists. A set of psychodiagnostic methods was selected, which helped to study the main parameters of communicative competence, features of professional orientation and motivation of future professional activity. The obtained results were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis. The sample included 72 Bachelor’s degree psychology students studying at Vasyl’ Stus Donetsk National University. The research consisted of two stages. The first stage incorporated the assessment of communicative competence, based on which the sample of subjects was divided into 3 subgroups according to their level of communicative competence development. The second stage analyzed the features of professional motivation and attitude to one’s own professional development of psychology students with different levels of communicative competence development. The results demonstrate that students with a high level of communicative competence in comparison with students with medium and low levels of communicative competence in the structure of professional motivation are dominated by intrinsic motivation, which indicates that for such students their future profession itself is very important. Moreover, these students have a clear idea of their future professional activity, are more professionally oriented, which will contribute to their successful professional development.

Highlights

The dynamic development of various spheres of modern society determines the qualitative transformation of professional training requirements for specialists in any field of activity
Considering the specifics of professional activity of future psychologists and the peculiarities of communicative competence in the context of professional development of specialists in this field, we have identified the following major parameters for assessing the development of communicative competence in psychologists: ability to self-control; ability to listen and express one’s thoughts; empathic abilities; communicative and organizational skills investigated by using appropriate psychodiagnostic techniques
According to the purpose of our study, the concept of communicative competence was determined as a set of communicative knowledge, skills, and abilities through which a subject realizes the goals and objectives of communicative and professional activities and achieves mutual understanding in the process of interaction

Summary

Introduction

The dynamic development of various spheres of modern society determines the qualitative transformation of professional training requirements for specialists in any field of activity. It should be noted that this becomes especially relevant in cases where the resource for professional activities is the personality of a specialist One of such fields is the professional activity of a psychologist, which requires a high level of professional training, and a significant personal development (Batsylieva & Puz, 2017). In order to successfully implement various forms of professional psychological activity, a higher education student should meet a number of requirements helping to develop various personal qualities and capacities. Among the latter, especially important is the formation of communicative competence, which involves mastering verbal and nonverbal means of communication, ability to initiate and maintain verbal contact

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion