Factors and Barriers of Self-Development of Postgraduate Students in the Context of Continuous Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the problem of training scientific and scientific-pedagogical personnel in postgraduate school. The academic community has drawn an increasing attention to this aspect and this year it has taken on a new urgency due to the transition of postgraduate training to a new model which is an important component of continuous teacher professional development aimed at availability of staff replacement for higher education. The authors note the importance of using the resources for self-development of future university teachers as well as their readiness for learning and self-improvement. As a result of this study, significance levels of the factors of future university teachers’ creative self-development were determined in four groups – social, organizational-pedagogical, psychological-pedagogical, psychological (personal) and barriers to self-development, identified as a result of a survey of Russian and foreign postgraduate students. The authors presented the results of a comparative analysis of the obtained data. The purpose of the article is to determine the level of significance of factors and identify barriers to self-development of Russian and foreign postgraduate students based on a questionnaire on four groups of factors/barriers, and a comparative analysis of the data obtained. Methodology and methods. The research methodology was based on the provisions of the theory of professional and personal development of the teacher V.A. Slastenin, becoming his subject of self-development in the context of continuous pedagogical education. The authors used theoretical (analysis of scientific information, comparison, generalization) and empirical (questionnaires, analysis of products of postgraduate students’ activity) research methods. Results. The authors determined and analysed the levels of significance of four groups of factors and the barriers of self-development of future teaching staff of higher education — Russian postgraduate students and postgraduate students from other countries. The most significant factors in the self-development of Russian postgraduate students are psychological (personal) and professional and pedagogical, the most significant barrier is social (including lack of housing conditions, low wages). For foreign postgraduate students, the most significant factors are professional-pedagogical and social, barriers are organizational-pedagogical and social factors. Finally, the authors proposed the options for the organization’s activities to reduce barriers to self-development of postgraduate students.