(2016) Science and education, 2-3, 34-39. Odessa.

Svitlana Shevchenko,
PhD (Candidate of Psychological Sciences), senior lecturer, Department of Psychology,
Melitopol State Pedagogical University named after Bogdan Khmelnitsky,
20, Lenina Str., Melitopol, Ukraine  

PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES OF COGNITIVE AND CONATIVE COMPONENT OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS’ MENTAL HEALTH 

Intellectual activity of students is a complex process in terms of objectively existing contradictions, which create large emotional stress, adversely affecting their mental capacity. The article is aimed at experimental studying of the psychological characteristics of the structural components of cognitive and conative components of first-year students’ mental capacity. Differentiating scientific sources on the issue of mental capacity and its features, the authors have formulated their own point of view on the definition of the constructs of mental capacity: cognitive, emotional, personal and conative components. During the pilot study there have been examined the psychological characteristics of the cognitive (presented by the development of students’ cognitive processes) and conative components of students’ mental capacity, studied on the basis of data analysis of their academic progress by the examinations results. The results of the pilot study have revealed that the majority of students have the middle level of mental capacity development according to the cognitive and conative components. First-year students are characterized by the ability to select relevant information and disregard unnecessary one, the ability to maintain attention on a specific object for a certain period of time, without weakening it and without being distracted. The students also demonstrated the ability to use concepts, which allowed them to master successfully the various activities, especially training and mental. Besides, the average indices of intellectual activity efficiency have been diagnosed in first-year students. They, having got “excellent” and “good” marks for the examinations, demonstrating the productive performance of intellectual tasks, partially completing mental actions, are able to correct the mistakes, the number of which is insignificant, to summarize, systematize information under the guidance of a teacher. This gives an opportunity to state that students have nearly enough potential for successful acquisition of high-quality knowledge and productivity of mental activity. In spite of this, there have been also detected rather low indicators of mental capacity development according to the distinguished components. It requires the development of a system of measures for their improvement, which is considered as a prospect of the further research in this direction

 mental efficiency, cognitive component, conative component, cognitive processes, mental action.

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