Experience in Assessing the Emotional Intelligence of University Graduates in the Specialty “Business Informatics”

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe new approaches to the practical reaction of the educational process of training business informatics specialists to the modern challenges of digitalization of society in the field of formation of emotional intelligence of university graduates. In conditions of uncertainty, instability, high turbulence of the environment, business requirements for graduates of the education system are changing significantly: there is a transformation of the priorities of requirements from the simple formation of knowledge to skills and abilities to demonstrate the capability to work in extreme conditions, having stress resistance, high emotional intelligence. Business practice shows that in the conditions of post-pandemic and turbulence of the environment, the elements of emotional and professional “burnout” of employees significantly increase, which leads to a decrease in productivity and quality of work. These circumstances indicate the urgent relevance of the mobile restructuring of the training process, primarily in the field of digitalization of business and society as a whole.Materials and methods. In this study, an interdisciplinary approach was applied, implemented at the intersection of pedagogy, management, cultural studies, business philosophy, psychology, mathematical statis- tics, and information technology. The method of contextual analysis and synthesis of factual material was used to study the current state of the problem from publicly available information sources. The study was conducted from 2019 to 2022 at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation among students of the 4th year of bachelor’s degree and 1-2 years of master’s degree in the direction of training “Business Informatics”, studying in the profile “IT management in business”. The analysis of the existing system of training specialists shows that it is not able, even after the master’s degree, to provide business with employees who are able to carry out their functional duties with a high degree of stress tolerance, good emotion management, effective practical skills in information and communication processes in conditions of uncertainty and high turbulence.Results. Based on the results of the analysis of the information available in the public domain, the main trends in changing the requirements for practical skills and abilities of university graduates in the specialty business informatics have been identified. Using feedback from graduates of a Financial University working in Russian business, as well as with their employer managers, a list of core competencies has been compiled that are lacking in the modern educational process of universities, or which are only fragmentary in the list of Federal State Educational Standards of the Russian Federation. The authors of this work over the past four years have failed to assess the level of competence of graduates of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the field of study “Business Informatics”. This result showed the urgent need to shift the emphasis of the educational process from the formation of a typical set of knowledge among students towards the formation of skills and abilities in the field of work in extreme conditions, the formation of stress resistance and emotional intelligence. Within the framework of possible corrections of working educational programs for bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in business informatics, the authors began using methods and technologies for the formation of emotional intelligence, the use of tools for assessing and self-evaluating the level of competence in the elements that determine the emotional formation and development of personality.Conclusion. The analysis of doing business in the conditions of a pandemic and high turbulence of the environment showed the importance of transforming the personnel training system towards shifting priorities to the field of developing skills and abilities to work in extreme conditions, the ability to manage emotions. The higher education system, from the point of view of modern business requirements, is obliged to form, along with the total amount of knowledge (Intelligence Quotient, IQ), emotional intelligence (Emo- tion Quotient, EQ) among university graduates. The experience of evaluating graduates of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Business Informatics at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation shows a low level of EQ that is unacceptable from the point of view of business requirements. However, even with the fragmentary introduction of the basic elements of EQ formation during the implementation of master’s degree programs in the 1st and 2nd courses, the level of basic competencies in the field of emotional intelligence formation increases significantly.