LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES FOR PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF SOCIAL WORKERS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Abstract

The article addresses the problem of professional training of social workers in scientific research activity. The authors substantiated that pedagogic theory and practice lack of comprehensive studies of research technologies for training of professionals in social work. The article aims to specify effective technologies for training of social workers in scientific research activity in tertiary education. Research methods used: analysis of the scientific literature, systematization (with a view to clarifying the key research notions), studying the experience of higher educational institutions in research training of social workers (with a view to defining distinctive features of the process), generalization (with a view to drawing the conclusions). The authors rationalized the research skills of social workers as an important component and an essential feature of professional social work in the current context. Professional development of well-educated, proactive, and highly committed researcher is an absolute precondition for further evolution of the profession aiming at social protection of different groups of population. The authors justified commitment of social worker to scientific research activity as a coherent system of professional and personal features, sound theoretical and methodological knowledge and skills, and proactive personal attitudes to research process, which are reflected in awareness and positive perception of scientific research activity as a component of professionalism. The authors concluded that effective technologies for training of social workers in scientific research activity in tertiary education are as follows: case technology (it enables students to develop specific practical skills through the collective creative discussion based on real situation containing unique practical experience), learning-focused (it enables higher leaning achievements of the students without increase in a volume of learning through the changes in the learning strategies, structure of provided information, and ways of communication), differentiated instruction (providing students with environment which enables each of them to develop abilities to conduct research), development of critical thinking (development of scientific thinking to solve non-trivial expert tasks), project development (enables students to develop their capacities of combining and matching the formal knowledge with the practical experience).