(2016) Science and education, 5, 223-228. Odessa.

Olena Machushnyk,
аssistant of the Department of General,
Developmental and Educational Psychology,
Zhytomyr State University named after Ivan Franko,
40, Velyka Berdychivska Str., Zhytomyr, Ukraine

COGNITIVE ACTIVITY AS AN IMPORTANT PART
OF PSYCHOLOGISTS’ PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

The article deals with cognitive activity as one of the most important concepts in psychology and pedagogy. The issue of training psychological staff is extremely important and requires careful and balanced consideration. When training psychologists at the universities teachers should pay particular attention to the development of students’ activity, independence, and creativity. Cognitive activity is considered as a complex psychological entity that defines qualitative characteristics of individual’s activity. It has motivational, operational and personal components. The carried out experiment involved 400 students (1-5 th years of studying) majoring in Psychology. The level of the formation of students’ motivational component has been assessed basing on the orientation of motivation for educational activity, the level of their cognitive interest, cognitive needs, and cognitive initiative. Operational component in the study is associated with the students’ ability to apply their knowledge to solving various issues of different difficulty as well as their achievements at educational institutions. The personal component has been evaluated according to the level of their professional orientation, ability to work independently, the desire to study supplementary books and be engaged in additional activities in regard to their major. The study of cognitive activity of students-psychologists has specified the structure of cognitive activity, its components and levels. The following three levels of students’ cognitive activity have been distinguished: reproductive-imitative (students are characterised by low academic performance, they are not interested in studying and self-development), search-executive (these students study systematically, their academic performance is unstable, they do not read supplementary literature), and creative (these students have the skills of independent cognitive activities, they are focused on their future professional activities and have high academic performance).

activity, cognitive activity, types, components, criteria, levels and indicators of cognitive activity.

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