Predictors of successful professional activity of Ukrainian civil service specialists in emergency situations

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical study to establish predictors of successful (effective) professional activity of emergencies specialists. The study was conducted in several stages. At the first stage, its participants were 25 ordinary citizens aged 18 to 65 and 15 professionals with experience in emergencies and representing the age group 22-45. Two focus groups were conducted: the first – with ordinary citizens (90 minutes), the second – with specialists (120 minutes). As a result, a list of professional competencies of a specialist in the extreme field of activity was formed. This list also contained competencies (as some respondents did not distinguish between competencies and competencies due to low level of awareness) and consisted of 27 items. A semi-structured interview was conducted with each expert (20 minutes). The group of experts consisted of 12 people (police, military, rescuers, psychologists). The selection of experts was carried out taking into account the following criteria: experience of at least five years, participation in the elimination of the consequences of emergencies (floods, fires, hostilities, accidents). In the end, erroneously included competencies were removed from the list, and some were combined into competencies. Subsequently, the experts were asked to identify the essential competencies for predicting successful professional activity. Each professional competence had to be assessed on a five-point scale. The frequency of representation of a certain competence was calculated based on the obtained data. This made it possible to determine the predictors of successful professional activity of emergencies specialists, in particular, such competencies as tolerance for uncertainty and risk competence. The article also presents the results of a review of theoretical and empirical research on the phenomena of «tolerance for uncertainty» and «risk-taking». It offers psychological tools for studying these phenomena. The main conclusion of our analysis is that attempts to understand better the phenomena of tolerance for uncertainty and risk-taking are not currently effective enough to achieve a single conceptual definition or an adequate empirical measure covering the full range of tolerances and uncertainties. This significantly complicates the practical acquisition of competencies necessary for the successful (effective) professional activity of emergencies specialists. And questionnaires, which are the main psychological tools, are too subjective