The Dependence of the Level of Developing Students’ Research Skills from the Organization of Professional and Pedagogical Training in Learner Autonomy

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of development of students’ research skills and the organization of professional and pedagogical training in learner autonomy. The problem of future teachers training is vital as the requirements in modern educational system are changing and the professionals should be able to adapt quickly and efficiently. Special attention is paid to the education of foreign language teachers as they are the professionals who should be competent not only in language teaching but in other spheres of activities. The standards of education are considered; research skills are defined, the curricula for training Bachelors in Philology were studied. It is revealed that most of the curricula have the updated version of the outdated programmes which is considered to be one of the problems of research skills development which are important for future teachers’ professional development. The article provides the statistical analysis revealing the connection between developing students research skills and their academic achievements. The results of students’ course paper defense were analyzed, revealing lack of students’ research skills which makes it more difficult to obtain positive results. Moreover, it is not enough to possess particular theoretical knowledge for writing a course paper, a student has to have sufficient practice experience and the ability to describe the results of their study on paper. The data for the analysis was collected at H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University among future language teachers whose first foreign language is English. On the basis of the statistical analysis, the results for the following years were predicted. It is assumed that, if not change and update the approach to teaching, students’ results in course paper defense are to decline. The worst situation is with “Methodology of teaching a foreign language” as it is one of the most difficult subjects as it is not purely theoretical and requires pedagogical practice which is time and effort consuming. Another reason for declining the results is general tendency of insignificance of higher education in Ukraine and the fact that education does not guarantee future employment. Suggestions for overcoming the problems in organizing students’ research are presented as well as the ways to update the curricula and sets of exercises given to the students.