Formation of information-communication competence of future agricultural engineering specialists at agricultural institutions of higher education

Abstract

One of the components of professional competence is information-communication competence, the development of which determines the ability of the future specialists in agricultural engineering to interact efficiently in the agrarian environment with their colleagues and managers. This is especially true for the mandatory components of professional training, in particular the disciplines: “Innovative technologies for the production of agricultural products”, “Agrarian service and information support”, “Methods of scientific research”, “Analysis of technological systems”, “Modelling of technological processes and systems”, and others as the most universal basic disciplines. The aim of this investigation is to introduce into the educational process the information-communication competence of the future agricultural engineering specialists at agricultural institutions of higher education, aimed at the formation and development of professional training. Implementation of pedagogical conditions, introduction of an experimental methodology for the formation of information-communication competence of the future agricultural engineering specialists in the process of professional training made it possible to achieve significant changes in the levels of formation of the studied phenomenon in the experimental group compared to the reference group. 100 students of “Podilskyi State University” took part in the experiment. In the experimental group the results of the formation of information-communication competence of the future agricultural engineering specialists improved significantly: at the sufficient level they increased by 6.0%, at the satisfactory level – by 8.0%, but at the low level the results decreased by 14.0%. In the reference group there were also positive changes in the levels of formation of the information-communication competence of the future agricultural engineering specialists: at the sufficient level the results increased by 1.0%, at the satisfactory level – by 2.0%, but at the low level – they decreased by 3.0%. The positive dynamics of the level of knowledge, revealed as a result of experimental testing, gives reason to assert the efficiency of the proposed organizational and pedagogical conditions and methodology for the formation of information-communicative competence of the future agricultural engineering specialists in the process of professional training.