Personal Development Programme Research Articles

Детское движение России как инструмент развития современного человеческого капитала

In his article Child movement in Russia as an instrument of modern human capital development the author puts forward the problem of underestimating
 and even complete ignoring children community unions while handling the task of preparing effective human potential for Russian regions. According
 to author the State as the customer of human capital and the children movement as a potential contract accepter at key stages of forming required
 values, competencies and traits, have not yet built regular “business” relationship: they have not defined exact goals of educational process according
 to current labour market demands, and have not drawn ”game rules” for educators market. Fineness of the publication is due to the fact that many
 advocates of pushing global human and Russian traditional spiritual values into education do not see themselves as professionals responsible for
 forming competencies for success at modern labour markets as well. Even the terms human capital, educators market, personal development program
 are strongly confronted by many teachers. But it is impossible not to talk about that. Especially after publishing State strategy of pedagogy in Russian
 Federation up to 2025 and its stating the task of forming national pedagogical ideal.

Teachers’ Work Mentality and Work Satisfaction in Relation with their Personality Traits

The study intends to figure out a relationship between the emotional intelligence, self efficacy and other personality traits on the one hand, and work mentality and work satisfaction on the other hand. The study is going to find out if work satisfaction and work mentality is correlated with personal traits of teachers. The research is done on sample of 188 teachers of different scientific background, ages, and belonging both to rural and urban area. The instruments used were The Work Satisfaction Questionnaire (Constantin, 2004), The work Mentality Questionnaire (Constantin, 2004), The 33-items questionnaire for measurement of the emotional intelligence (Schutte et all), Self-Efficacy Scale and Five Factor Personality Inventory. The results show an image upon the work satisfaction and work mentality of the teachers in terms of different variables and also the relation between personal traits and work satisfaction and work mentality in teaching career. The results show an image regarding the relationships between teachers’ personal traits and their work mentality and satisfaction; these could be useful in developing personal development programs for teachers in order to enhance their work efficiency.

Exploring teacher identity from a holistic perspective: reconstructing and reconnecting personal and professional selves

This article explores the influence of personal and professional experiences on the development of teacher identity. The holistic perspective in this article refers to the language teachers’ exploration of their personal and professional experiences with the use of both conscious/rational and intuitive/tacit thought processes. Three language teachers explored their beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations originating in their personal, educational, and professional experiences that also affected their teacher identity. Reflexive autobiographical journaling, a guided visualization activity, and three in-depth interviews were used as research methods. The results confirm that teacher identity is deeply embedded in one’s personal biography. The participants’ beliefs and interpretations rooted in their family environment made an impact on their school experiences, career choice, instructional practice, teaching philosophy, and teacher identity. The results suggest that the analysis of teachers’ personal life experiences and their impact on teaching can lead to a holistic understanding of the dominant influences on the development of teacher identity. This research suggests that there may be a broader spectrum of the influences on teacher identity development in professional development than heretofore acknowledged. This paper argues for the necessity of designing an integrated personal and professional development program for language teachers.

Preconception care: promoting reproductive planning.

IntroductionPreconception care recognizes that many adolescent girls and young women will be thrust into motherhood without the knowledge, skills or support they need. Sixty million adolescents give birth each year worldwide, even though pregnancy in adolescence has mortality rates at least twice as high as pregnancy in women aged 20-29 years. Reproductive planning and contraceptive use can prevent unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexually-transmitted infections in adolescent girls and women. Smaller families also mean better nutrition and development opportunities, yet 222 million couples continue to lack access to modern contraception.MethodA systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence was conducted to ascertain the possible impact of preconception care for adolescents, women and couples of reproductive age on MNCH outcomes. A comprehensive strategy was used to search electronic reference libraries, and both observational and clinical controlled trials were included. Cross-referencing and a separate search strategy for each preconception risk and intervention ensured wider study capture.ResultsComprehensive interventions can prevent first pregnancy in adolescence by 15% and repeat adolescent pregnancy by 37%. Such interventions should address underlying social and community factors, include sexual and reproductive health services, contraceptive provision; personal development programs and emphasizes completion of education. Appropriate birth spacing (18-24 months from birth to next pregnancy compared to short intervals <6 months) can significantly lower maternal mortality, preterm births, stillbirths, low birth weight and early neonatal deaths.ConclusionImproving adolescent health and preventing adolescent pregnancy; and promotion of birth spacing through increasing correct and consistent use of effective contraception are fundamental to preconception care. Promoting reproductive planning on a wider scale is closely interlinked with the reliable provision of effective contraception, however, innovative strategies will need to be devised, or existing strategies such as community-based health workers and peer educators may be expanded, to encourage girls and women to plan their families.

Innovation development – an action learning programme for medical scientists and engineers

There is increasing evidence that action learning is valuable in a higher education setting. This paper goes on to report a personal development programme, based on principles of critical action learning, where the aim is to equip early-career scientists and engineers working in a university setting with the knowledge, skills and confidence to approach the management of innovation. After learning about action learning and critical reflection, the participants, all postdoctorate researchers, completed innovation projects at work, meeting in action learning sets as they proceed. We explain a method of critical thinking before reporting results from an evaluation study based on interviews and focus groups. We consider examples of projects undertaken before considering challenges for students with this approach to learning. Challenges included scepticism about the usefulness of management literature, difficulties in finding ‘problems’ within the constraints of postdoctoral work, and the discomfort and intensiveness of action learning. However, through adaptation by the tutors with students, some significant results were achieved.

Introduction

The authors in this two-part feature describe some of the innovative PE programs they have developed — most of which break away from “traditional” sports and fitness instruction and instead emphasize alternative forms of physical activity, new methods of exercise and personal development, experiential learning, community integration, and interdisciplinary programs.

The Impact of Personal and Professional Experiences: Holistic Exploration of Teacher Identity

This paper investigates the impact of personal and professional experiences on the development of teacher identity. The holistic perspective in this article refers to the language teachers’ exploration of their personal and professional experiences with the use of both conscious/rational and intuitive/tacit thought processes. Three language teachers who participated in this study explored the beliefs, perceptions, and interpretations originating in their personal, educational, and professional experiences which also affected their teacher identity. Reflexive autobiographical journaling, a guided visualization activity, and three in-depth interviews were used in the research methodology. The results confirm that teacher identity is deeply embedded in one’s personal biography. The participants’ beliefs and interpretations rooted in their family environment influenced their early school experiences, career choice, instructional practice, teaching philosophy, and teacher identity. The results suggest that the analysis of teachers’ personal life experiences and their influence on professional practice can lead to a holistic understanding of the dominant influences on the development of teacher identity. The implications of this research are that a broader spectrum of the influences on teacher identity development needs more overt attention in professional development. This paper argues for the necessity of designing an integrated personal and professional development program for language teachers.

SP0207 Evaluate the effectiveness of a body image personal development training for young people with arthritis

BackgroundThe impact of having arthritis can be extremely difficult for anyone but when you are young the impact can be devastating. In addition to chronic physical symptoms the condition can...

The Increase of the Differentiation Level of the Self through Unifying Personal Development

The paper reveals the dynamics of the differentiation process of the self, associated with psychic maturity. The research demonstrates the efficiency of a personal development program on the increase of the differentiation level of the self. The paper also emphasizes the correlations between this level and the levels of anxiety, depression, self-satisfaction and emotional intelligence. The retest took place two months after program and it confirmed the hypotheses. This is the first study revealing the dynamics of differentiation of the self and its multiple correlations. Moreover, it validates a personal development program in order to enhance this differentiation.

Enhancing the mental health promotion component of a health and personal development programme in Irish schools.

This study set out to examine the impact of a health and personal development programme (the Social, Personal and Health Education Programme) which had been ‘enhanced’ by the addition of a mental health promotion component. Students aged 12–16 years attending 17 secondary schools were randomly allocated as clusters to participate in either the standard programme (SP) or the enhanced programme (EP). Both programmes were delivered over an eight-month period. Questionnaires assessing help-seeking, emotional and behavioural difficulties and students’ views of school social environment were completed by students in both groups at pre-intervention, post-intervention and at six-month follow-up. One thousand and seventy-two students participated. Analyses were carried out on the 782 students (72.9%) for whom data were available at all three time points. Both groups showed improvement over time in terms of emotional and behavioural difficulties, with male students identified as ‘at risk’ in the EP showing significantly greater improvements than males ‘at risk’ in the SP. Although there were few differences in outcomes between the groups, males identified as ‘at risk’ appeared to benefit selectively from the EP.

Educating Youth for Entrepreneurship in Work & Life : Experience of a Junior Secondary School Project in Morocco

National education policies around the globe increasingly highlight the need to equip children and youth with entrepreneurial skills, also called “21st century skills,” “employability skills,” “core competencies and others. The present article identifies and analyzes these skills, combining the perspectives of employers and the international development sector, and asserts that education and training can and indeed must work deliberately to imbue students with these. The Entrepreneurial Spirit Development Program (PDEE), developed and implemented for lower secondary students by the USAID/ALEF project in Morocco serves to illustrate what a purposeful personal skills development program might be. The experience generated positive outcomes in terms of students’ social engagement, academic results, school retention and other measures. Finally, a review of the key findings of an independent assessment of the effects of PDEE (Bouhassoune 2011) on students two years after the project ended provides empirical evidence of the effectiveness of such a program on the vocational “maturity” of students, equipping them for productive professional futures.

THE EFFECTS OF A SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING PROGRAM ON THE THINKING PATTERN OF A GROUP OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is one of the best approaches to teaching students the skills needed to better adapt to life and develop on a personal and professional level. Your-SELF is an abbreviation for “Your Social Emotional Learning Facilitator” and represents a social-emotional learning program based on the Rational Emotive Behavior Theory (REBT). It was implemented and tested as a personal development program for university students, for an entire academic year, with 3-4 hours weekly trainings. It is also a powerful and effective way to decrease the level of irrationality in the students' thinking style, along with developing some major life competencies (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, decision making). In order to test this idea, an experimental design with repeated measures was used and the results clearly support the hypothesis that a SEL program based on the principles of REBT can lead to a significant decrease in the level of irrationality of the students in the experimental group, compared to the control one. Also, the four sub-scales of the instrument used to investigate the level of irrationality (ABS2) were analyzed and the same significant results were found on the level of low frustration tolerance, self-downing/global evaluation and awfulizing. The only exception was demandingness, and a rationale for this is offered in the discussion part of the article. The study shows that such a program can be beneficial and useful for the students involved and it is worth implementing on a larger scale. Key words: competencies; rational and irrational thinking pattern; rational emotive behavior education; social-emotional learning; training; university students.

Designing And Evaluating A Personal Skills Development Program For Management Education

Success in preparing business students for professional careers requires these students to develop a set of well-defined personal skills. The present study examined 145 business students to assess the effectiveness of a personal skills development (PSD) program by measuring the impact of the training on the students’ attitudes in skill development and by evaluating their satisfaction of the learning process. We present the planning and implementation processes of a comprehensive semester-long program in an English-speaking university in Asia that aims to develop the personal skills of business undergraduates. Differences between pre- and post-test perceived ability skill levels were highly significant (p < .01). Respondents also agreed that the program has a positive impact on their skill development and reported satisfaction with the learning experience. This study provides suggestions to business educators on developing and evaluating a range of personal skills amongst students. Recommendations and limitations of the study are discussed.

Occupational stress in physical education and sport area

Occupational stress is a debate topic for many specialists interested in optimizing the efficiency of the employees working in different fields. In physical education and sports, this issue has a series of specific traits based on the occupation (teacher, coach) requirements. This paper aims at highlighting the share factors facilitating the occurrence of stress depending on the occupation. Data analysis revealed that occupational stress has specific forms of manifestation. Results contribute to the teaching profession monograph in the field and provide reference points for personal and professional development programs designed to these categories of specialists.

Executive coaching in practice: what determines helpfulness for clients of coaching?

PurposeExecutive coaching is gaining in popularity, both as part of personal or organisational development programmes and as a tailored form of individual consulting. The purpose of this study is to examine how various aspects of the executive coaching intervention make a difference to the clients of coaching themselves.Design/methodology/approachThe study involved a web‐based questionnaire (163 closed and three open questions) completed by 71 executive coaching clients shortly after the beginning of their coaching contract and by 31 of those again approximately six months later.FindingsThe research found that clients' appreciation of coaching was high. In response to the research question “What determines helpfulness for clients?” a picture emerged of a client valuing the relationship with and the qualities of the coach, while making little distinction between specific interventions of that same coach. The findings support the idea that common factors are at work in executive coaching, so that helpfulness is much less predicted by technique or approach than by factors common to all coaching, such as the relationship, empathic understanding, positive expectations etc.Research limitations/implicationsFor further quantitative research into the effectiveness or helpfulness of executive coaching it will become increasingly important to explore the relative effectiveness of the various common factors.Practical implicationsThe findings show that professional executive coaches would do well to enhance the common factors in their work, such as the quality of their empathic understanding, the quality of the coaching relationship as perceived by the client, and the expectations of their client.Originality/valueThis research shows that a broad range of techniques are deemed helpful, and equally so. It is therefore not the preference for a specific technique that makes a difference, but rather the ability to employ many techniques, to use them well and at the right moment. This is clear support for a common‐factors perspective on executive coaching

The Postgraduate Personal and Professional Development Programme

Context The importance of promoting and nurturing positive personal and professional qualities such as handling stress, leadership and counseling skills among clinical specialists are becoming more apparent within healthcare. Hence, postgraduate medical training must be holistic in its approach and could no longer emphasis on building up knowledge alone. Studies have shown that it has positive effects on the quality of care provided. This article described a programme known as the ‘Postgraduate Personal and Professional Development Programme’ in our institution.

The construct validity and internal consistency of the Postgraduate Stressor Questionnaire among postgraduate medical trainees

Objective: To determine the construct validity and the internal consistency of the Postgraduate Stressor Questionnaire (PSQ) among postgraduate medical trainees hence it could be used as a valid and reliable instrument to identify stressors among them. Methods: Items of the PSQ were derived from a review of literature on the subject and a discussion with experts in the field. It comprised of 28 items with seven hypothetical groups. The content and face validity was established through discussion with experts from field of Medical Education and Psychiatry. It was administered to all participants (N = 34) of postgraduate personal and professional development programme in a Malaysian university. Data was analysed using Statistical Package Social Sciences (SPSS) version 18. Factor analysis was applied to test construct validity whereas reliability analysis was applied to test internal consistency of the PSQ. Results: Thirty three postgraduate medical trainees participated in this study. Factor analysis found that the 28 items of the PSQ were loaded nicely into the seven pre-determined groups as their factor loading values were more than 0.3. The reliability analysis showed that the Cronbach’s alpha value for The PSQ was 0.95. Whereas, The Cronbach’s alpha values for academic, poor relationship with superior, bureaucratic constraints, work-family conflicts, poor relationship with colleagues, performance pressure, and poor job prospect domains were 0.63, 0.84, 0.81, 0.65, 0.73, 0.78, and 0.70 respectively. Conclusion: This study showed that the PSQ is a reliable and valid instrument to identify stressors of postgraduate medical trainees. It is a promising instrument that can be used in future to explore further on this area.

Experience from a Communication Skills Workshop for Medical Students

Context Communication skill is one of the soft skills in professional development of future medical professionals. A good doctor needs not only knowledge but good effective communication skill in dealing with daily routine work as heath care provider. Effective communication skills can be taught and learned. Based on these principles, a workshop on communication was developed by trainees of the Department of Medical Education, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia in collaboration with The Student Personal and Professional Development Programme (SPPDP) in achieving the university’s programme objectives.

The Postgraduate Personal and Professional Development Programme

The Postgraduate Personal and Professional Development Programme

Successful integration of a mental skills program to a specialist sports school program

Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to review the effectiveness of a Sport Psychology program delivered to 60 students ranging from year 5 to year 12 that are part of a tennis development program at a sports specialist school. While there have been some holistic personal development programs delivered through Physical Education settings, there is limited research into the integration of a specific Sport Psychology program to enhance sport performance. In addition, one aspect of the program was the development of a mission statement to enhance the overall “team” culture for students.