Educational psychology

Background. The formation of multiplicative concepts of complex structure is a challenge for educational design. Students’ typical mistakes and strategies spontaneously obtained through hands-on trials in solving balance scale problems have been at the center of many studies within this trend. However, the consideration of relevant concept-mediated actions based on Learning Activity Theory (Davydov) remains a relevant problem.

Objective. We aimed to develop a feasible framework for digital support of students’ learning actions in this domain. The productiveness of individual and joint forms of work with dynamic objects in a digital environment, mediated with conceptual modeling tools, was compared.

Design. The participants were 181 fifth-grade students (11–12 years old). The first group (123 students) was taught a special procedure of modeling, which they then could test during individual computer-supported problem-solving. The second group (58 students) worked in pairs (jointly), using the same procedure. The pre- and post-tests included challenging problems on prediction of the balance state and ways to regain equilibrium.

Results. Comparison of the pre- and post-test results of the joint computer-supported activity instruction revealed students’ progress in solving critical tasks as guided by the conceptual modeling procedure of load evaluation instead of “empirical” correlations of weights and distances. The individual computer-supported work, however, failed to overcome the belief of some students in the efficacy of trial-and-error methods as applied to the digital simulation with instant feedback.

Conclusion. The special organization of the computer-supported concept-mediated joint activity may promote multiplicative concept formation.

Background. The theoretical basis of the study was the resource approach (Morosanova 2014, 2017), in which the conscious self-regulation of learning activity is understood as a meta-resource, of students allowing them to consciously and independently set learning goals and manage their achievement. This approach made it possible to create models of direct and mediate contributions of self-regulation and school engagement not only to the academic performance, but also to other motivational and personal competencies.

Objective. Our study is aimed to investigate the impact of conscious self-regulation, school engagement, motivation, and personality on academic achievement, while taking into account the effects of mediation.

Design. A quantitative research design was applied, using data collected from more than 1524 students from the 5^th to 11^th grades in Russian schools and applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).

Results. The results allowed us to construct a statistical model of predictors of students' academic achievement. The model was verified on the total sample, as well as samples differing in gender and age. The results show that conscious self-regulation is central to non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. For the first time, a study has revealed and described the reciprocal relationship between self-regulation, academic motivation, school engagement, and academic performance. The resulting model demonstrates that behavioral and cognitive engagement make a significant contribution to academic performance, while emotional and social engagement do not find significant links with it, although they determine other areas of school life.

Conclusion. Our paper investigates the nature and strength of the effects of major non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. The study results substantiated the resource role of conscious self-regulation not only for students’ academic performance, but also for their academic motivation, school engagement, and attitude toward learning. The predictor model of academic achievement we developed will provide a foundation for combining existing heterogeneous concepts into a single integrated model and clarify the contradictions between them.

Background. The higher education system today requires students to be able to conduct independent academic work outside the educational system. Some data has been developed on the general educational skills of students; however, the available works are most often devoted to the skills of students in the humanities, yet in technical fields such as engineering, scientific knowledge becomes outdated much faster, which is associated with the global digitalization of society.

Objective. To assess the Diagnosis of Basic Learning Skills Task Battery (Metodika diagnostiki osnovnykh uchebnykh umenii) as modified for engineering students.

Design. The study was conducted in several stages. First, we created six sets of tasks for assessment of basic learning skills, based on the subject matter of engineering disciplines for students at three educational stages (first-year students, fourth-year students and second-year master students). Next, engineering students at different educational stages at Moscow Technological University (N = 135) took part in testing of the proposed task battery. They were also administered the Diagnosis of Supplementary Learning Skills Inventory by Ilyasov (questions for self-assessment), and a survey of academic performance and socio-demographic variables. Skills of memorization and consolidation of knowledge were not assessed in the current study. 

Results. Confirmatory factor analysis allowed us to establish high convergent validity of the task battery (p = 0.001). Internal consistency of the separate scales of the battery was acceptable (Cronbach’s aranged from 0.692 to 0.839). Тhere were significant positive connections between the modified task battery for diagnosis of basic learning skills and the battery for diagnosis of supplementary learning skills, academic performance, and educational stages.

Conclusion. The results demonstrate that the modified battery is a valid and reliable tool for measuring basic learning skills.

Background. The Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-A) is a useful self-report measure of academic motivation grounded in self-determination theory (E. Deci, R. Ryan). 

Objective. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the utility of the Russian version of the SRQ-A by reporting psychometric properties, examining the factorial structure of the SRQ-A, and assessing its construct validity in a large sample of primary and middle school children.

Design. To validate the Russian version of the SRQ-A, two cross-sectional studies were conducted, one with primary schoolchildren, and the second with middle schoolchildren.

Results. We developed and tested the Russian version of the SRQ-A on a sample of 1215 children, Grades 3-7, from three primary and three secondary (middle) schools in Russia. The multidimensional factorial structure of the original measure was tested with bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling (B-ESEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Construct validity was tested using correlational analyses with convergent and divergent measures. The SRQ-A showed good internal consistency for all subscales, with Cronbach’sαranging between 0.65 and 0.77 for the primary school children (Study 1), and 0.74 and 0.82 in a sample from the middle school children (Study 2). In both studies a simplex-structure pattern was confirmed, and the CFA model, with seven first-order factors and two second-order factors for intrinsic regulation and extrinsic regulation, had an acceptable fit. The results of both studies demonstrate that the subscales show good convergent and discriminant validity with respect to basic psychological needs, attitudes toward school, school well-being, and general well-being scales.

Conclusion. In sum, the 26-item Russian SRQ-A is a reliable and valid self-report instrument for the assessment of self-determined types of motivation for primary and middle schoolchildren.

Background. In Turkey, university education is highly valued, and is considered a key to success and happiness in life. The gatekeeper for a university education is a central entrance exam. The entire process is lengthy, hard, and anxiety-provoking. 

Objective. Our study aimed to investigate the factors associated with test anxiety related to the university entrance exam. The effects of the perceived attitudes of the student’s mother and father on his or her test anxiety are examined separately, and beyond the effect of other risk factors.

Design. The participants were 102 high school students and recent graduates between the ages of 14 and 19. Data was collected just before a test anxiety workshop, which was designed as part of an open day activity in a private, non-profit university. The workshop featured an interactive presentation about general anxiety, test anxiety, and coping strategies, which was followed by a progressive relaxation exercise.   

Results. It was found that having a lower GPA score, being female, and having an increased level of neuroticism, as well as an increased level of perceived paternal acceptance and paternal control, were associated with higher levels of test anxiety.

Conclusion. The university entrance exam preparation period in Turkey is quite stressful for the students and creates an economic strain for their families. Considering that fathers are usually the financial authority figure within the households, paternal attitudes might predominantly affect the test anxiety level experienced by the student. In addition to paternal control, paternal acceptance might also be a source of stress since it, like control, includes “expectations” for the student’s success. 

Background. The search for cognitive predictors of success in language learning is associated both with basic cognitive characteristics (processing speed and spatial working memory) and with general characteristics (intelligence). However, the ratio between cognitive functioning and success in language learning can change during the period of school education and depends on the socioeconomic level of the society and the effectiveness of the national educational system.

Objective. To analyze the cognitive predictors of Russian language learning samples of Russian-speaking 11th graders from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova, three countries with a similar organization of the educational system, but differing in the functional effectiveness of that educational system and in their socioeconomic levels.

Design. The sample comprised 545 Russian-speaking 11th graders (average age = 17.42 + 0.59; 36.1% male) studying Russian throughout their public-school education in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova. The statistical methods of one-way analysis of variance, correlation, and multiple regression analysis were used.

Results. Among the indicators of cognitive development we analyzed, the functioning of the national educational system is the one most associated with the development of fluid intelligence of 11th graders, which is directly proportional to the quality of education in the country; to a lesser extent, it is associated with the development of working memory. In Kyrgyzstan (with an average level of socioeconomic development) and Moldova (with a high level of socioeconomical development), only fluid intelligence was associated with the score on the state exam on the Russian language. In Russia, which has a very high level of socioeconomic development, fluid intelligence and spatial working memory were updated.

Conclusion. Differences in the relationship between cognitive functioning and success in Russian-language learning are associated both with the objectives of the state exam (identification of pupils ready to attend university versus testing of what was learned in school), and, in conditions of low educational effectiveness, with a greater cognitive load during the exam.

Background. The search for cognitive predictors of success in language learning is associated both with basic cognitive characteristics (processing speed and spatial working memory) and with general characteristics (intelligence). However, the ratio between cognitive functioning and success in language learning can change during the period of school education and depends on the socioeconomic level of the society and the effectiveness of the national educational system.

Objective. To analyze the cognitive predictors of Russian language learning samples of Russian-speaking 11th graders from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova, three countries with a similar organization of the educational system, but differing in the functional effectiveness of that educational system and in their socioeconomic levels.

Design. The sample comprised 545 Russian-speaking 11th graders (average age = 17.42 + 0.59; 36.1% male) studying Russian throughout their public-school education in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Moldova. The statistical methods of one-way analysis of variance, correlation, and multiple regression analysis were used.

Results. Among the indicators of cognitive development we analyzed, the functioning of the national educational system is the one most associated with the development of fluid intelligence of 11th graders, which is directly proportional to the quality of education in the country; to a lesser extent, it is associated with the development of working memory. In Kyrgyzstan (with an average level of socioeconomic development) and Moldova (with a high level of socioeconomical development), only fluid intelligence was associated with the score on the state exam on the Russian language. In Russia, which has a very high level of socioeconomic development, fluid intelligence and spatial working memory were updated.

Conclusion. Differences in the relationship between cognitive functioning and success in Russian-language learning are associated both with the objectives of the state exam (identification of pupils ready to attend university versus testing of what was learned in school), and, in conditions of low educational effectiveness, with a greater cognitive load during the exam.

Introduction. The need to develop students’ ability to learn independently has been a widely discussed issue in the theory and practice of education over the past 50 years (in research on learning to learn, self-regulated learning, metacognitive learning, etc.). If we understand instruction as a system of activities by the student and teacher, associated primarily with the transmission of cultural experience, then studying the psychological mechanism for accepting and using the proffered knowledge as an orientation for future actions is highly relevant.

Objective. We surmised that the ability to use given knowledge in the school instruction process (which we call “orientation towards given knowledge” [OGK]) would differ between fourth-graders studying in traditional educational systems (TE) and those in Developmental Education (DE), since these systems differ significantly in the principles of the selection learning material and organization of learning activity. We also sought to clarify the correlation between OGK and such important educational outcomes as the ability to identify the most important thing in a text, logical skills, memorization skills, and academic achievement.

Design. To diagnose OGK, we gave fourth-graders (N = 115) the definition of a concept, an instruction to recognize and identify objects as either being described or not described by that concept, and 10 recognition problems in the form of short texts. We assessed the level of OGK by counting the number of problems for which the answer was justified by the given definition. In addition, we measured the ability to identify the main point in the text, logical skills, and random memorization skills.

Results. Almost a quarter of all the fourth-graders (25.7%) failed to use the given definition at all; however, the DE students demonstrated a higher level of OGK (U = 2038, p < .01) significantly more often. OGK among general sample also correlated with the ability to identify the most important thing in a text (R = 0.31, p < .001), logical skills (R = +0.35, p < .001), and memorization skills (R = +0.195, p < .05 for short-term memory and R = +0.301, p < .01 for long-term memory).

Conclusions. Possible reasons for the cognitive performance of the fourth-graders are discussed. We argue that orientation towards given knowledge can be considered an essential condition for effective learning, and therefore serious attention should be paid to its development.

Today, Russia is a member of the European Federation of Psychological Associations (EFPA) and in the summer 2019 the Russian Psychological Society was the host to the 16th European Congress of Psychology (ECP) in Moscow, gathering psychologists from all over the world. In connection with the 2019 ECP, this special edition has been compiled by members of EFPA’s Standing Committee on Psychology in Education (SCPiE) and represents a collection of papers highlighting the range of work that educational psychologists undertake with schools and youth. This volume is also the next step for the EFPA Standing Committee for Psychologists in Education to strengthen and promote educational psychology in Europe, in order to reach our end goal: efficient and wellfunctioning institutions of learning.

Background. During the last decades, the need for supporting vulnerable groups of the population facing crisis situations and adversities has grown dramatically. School communities have been particularly affected increasing the need for interventions promoting individual and system’s resilience and well-being.

Objective. This paper presents an integrated approach to linking theory, training, research, and interventions in the Greek educational system in an alternative model for providing school psychological services. This approach puts particular emphasis on the development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for enhancing resilience and supporting school communities during unsettling times. 

Results. In particular the programs that have been developed and implemented by the Laboratory of School Psychology (LSP), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens are reviewed and presented. For the evaluation of the evidence-based intervention programs, a multilevel assessment model has been applied. Overall, results showed the effectiveness of SEL-based intervention programs aiming at a) enhancing individual resilience and psychological adjustment; and b) supporting school communities during adversities, such as economic recession, refugee influx, and natural disasters.

Conclusion. The evaluation process and the positive outcomes of the programs highlight the critical importance of implementing intervention programs to support all members of school communities. The description of the various actions developed and implemented by the LSP stresses the important role that universities can play in bridging the gap between theory, research, training, and practice in the field of school psychology.

Background. In recent decades, discussionhas been increasingabout the guidelines for psychological interventions, evidence-based interventions (EBI), and evidence-based practice (EBP). These efforts have a longer tradition in medicine and psychiatry,but are increasingly present in the practice of school psychology. The creation, use, and implementation of EBP procedures protects psychologists from intuitive and non-scientific procedures that can harm clients, psychology, and its development.

Objective. The focus of this article is the EBP of school psychologists in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We researched to what degree psychologists implement EBP in their work in educational institutions, in which domains they most effectively apply EBP, and what the obstacles and needs are regarding EBP in school psychology.

Design. Two hundred and two school psychologists answered a questionnaireabout their application of EBP. The questionnaire contains categories about the sourcesof EBP, its availability,and the extent to which respondents apply EBP in specific domains of their work.

Results. The data show a low practical significance of differences among respondents from the three countries. Respondents reported the highest values for the reliance of their work on professional cooperation, useof EBP principles in specific domains, and use ofprofessional guidelines.The Pearson correlation indicates positive association among all substantial categories.

Conclusion. The preliminary results show that school psychologists are aware of the importance of applying EBP in practice, and highlight some of the obstacles that prevent them from cultivating psychological science in the interest of education.

Background. Cultivation of positive attitudes towards gifted education is important to ensure that gifted students receive educational opportunities appropriate to their learning needs.

Objective. To examine the attitudes of students, parents, and teachers towards gifted education in the Slovenian upper secondary schools.

Design. A total of 1,020 students from four selective co-educational upper secondary schools (i.e., gymnasiums), their teachers (n= 84), and parents (n = 306) participated in the study. Respondents’ attitudes were assessed using an adapted version of the Gagne and Nadeau attitude survey about gifted students and their education. In order to obtain a deeper insight into the context, an open question about gifted education was also posed.

Results. Participants generally hold neutral to positive attitudes towards gifted education. They expressed their awareness of gifted students’ special academic needs and the meaningfulness of specific educational support. Furthermore, 68% of participating students emphasized the need for relatedness to their peers (i.e., not to stand out or be labelled), often neglected in provisions for the gifted. Comparative analysis showed that attitudes towards the extent of knowledge and experience in the field differed among the groups of participants.

Conclusion. Qualitative analysis complemented the quantitative findings by addressing “the principle of challenging” instead of “the principle of adding”, suggesting that the focus should be primarily on adapting the curricula and, out of consideration for their social and emotional needs in adolescence, not on overloading gifted students.

Background. The principles of acquiring knowledge and developmental theories are powerful tools that psychologists use in educational contexts to change people’s lives. As student populations become more diverse, psychologists need to play an important role in the evaluation and adaptation of their cognitive, behavioral, motivational, attitudinal, and emotional needs and challenges. They can intervene in various areas, from curriculum development, to regulations and guidelines for the application of direct educational tools and techniques by students, teachers, or institutions. One way to promote change at a macro-level is through providing creative experiences, such as interactive and engaging exhibitions that foster personal development at different levels.

Objective. The main focus of this study was to contribute to a theoretical foundation for the need to communicate psychological concepts through exhibitions. The secondary focus was the feedback given by visitors of all ages and educational contexts about how they enriched their knowledge about emotions through participating in an exhibit on the subject.

Design. We used a descriptive design, which employed diverse kinds of feedback from the visitors to an exhibition to measure its impact. The exhibition aimed at explaining in an interactive way what emotions are and how they may be regulated. The Southern Regional Delegation of the Order of Portuguese Psychologists (OPP) developed and displayed the “Experiencing Emotions” Exhibition (EEE), which featured 30 different activities divided into three parts: recognizing, living with, and transforming emotions. e exhibition toured the southern region of Portugal for nine months and was visited by more than 9000 people.

Results. The feedback was positive for all indicators.

Conclusion. Exhibitions like this one may be powerful instruments in the future to ensure that everyone has access to psychological concepts through interactive experiences, and gains knowledge about themselves, others, and the world.

Background. Although lyric poetry contains enormous opportunities for personal development of teenagers, expanding the scope of aesthetic experiences available to them, students often respond to it with hostility, for it is rather hard for them to comprehend. While much prior research has stressed the importance of teaching poetry to adolescents, the psychodidactic foundations of developing their creative interaction with lyric poetry and the role of textbooks in this process remain virtually unexplored.

Objective. To examine the psychodidactic foundations of developing teenagers’ creative interaction with lyric poetry: the relevant principles and their implementation in an educational book of a new – psychodidactic – type, which determines the strategy and tactics of the joint study activity modeled in it.

Design. A teaching intervention was conducted, which included whole-class discussions of the poems and work with educational books based on psychodidactic principles. Participants were 311 6th-8th grade students from four Moscow secondary schools.

Results. The principle of open individuality was singled out as the basic one and was elaborated in four interrelated sub-principles: wholeness, polylogy, multidimensionality, and value hierarchy. These principles were implemented in two educational book chapters on lyric poems by A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test conducted upon the results before and after the intervention revealed that the control group showed no significant changes, whereas the final results of the experimental group revealed significant (p < .001) increases in the level of the assessed aspects of creative interaction: description of one’s impression, interpretative opinion, lyric plot, experiences of the lyric hero, and figurative language.

Conclusion. Building the learning process on the psychodidactic principles mentioned above, as well as working with educational books based upon these principles, is effective in developing teenagers’ creative interaction with lyric poems, turning the reading of poetry into a valuable experience.

Background. Over the last several decades, the world has been made more accessible for people with disabilities. However, many of these achievements have primarily focused on physical limitations, and it is also important that the environment be made easy to understand for those people who may be at risk of social exclusion. Reading competence is one of the fundamental functional skills people need to access communication and culture. The facilitation of this adaptation is called cognitive accessibility. Cognitive accessibility encompasses everything related to how people understand the meaning of their environment, and especially written documents.

Objective.The main objective of this study was to establish a scale of evaluation of reading competence for adults with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) compared to university students (as a control group). Thus, we sought to  establish different levels of reading competence relative to the difficulty of various texts (A, B, C), in accordance with the criteria established in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

Design. 450 adults with IDD and 200 undergraduate university students took part in this study. They read and were scored on three texts of different lexical and semantic complexity.

Results. The results in three different studies showed that adults with intellectual and developmental disability (AIDD) improve their performance in reading comprehension when additional time and support are made available.

Conclusion. If a greater amount of time is made available, the performance of a significant part of the AIDD population improves considerably, in some cases approaching the level of performance of university students. These results raise new lines of research on how to give people with IDD access to more comprehensible and accessible reading material.

Background. More than 295,000 people have been identied with bleeding disorders worldwide, the majority being hemophiliacs (184,560; data from the World Federation of Hemophilia, 2017). Hemophilia poses a paradox: Physical activity is recommended for children with hemophilia for the sake of their health and to promote inclusion, but teachers are reluctant to involve them in sports at school. School psychologists play a key role in helping patients and their families adapt and learn to cope with their new reality, and they provide psychosocial support by helping patients and their families develop strategies to cope with physical, mental, emotional, and social challenges related to hemophilia.

Objective. The objective of this study is to include children with hemophilia, and their parents and teachers, in a participatory process to design an innovative digital tool for modifying mental representations of parents and teachers about the importance of physical activity and sports at school for hemophiliacs.

Design. The present study is based on a pre-/post-test design where the mental representation about hemophilia of all individuals concerned (16 children with hemophilia: mean age = 7.8 years, SD = 1.9; their parents; and their teachers) is collected twice: at the beginning (pre-test) and at the end (post-test) of the process of collaborative game design.

Results. Even though fathers, mothers, and teachers perceive some sports as more risky than others (e.g., rugby, soccer, cycling), they modied their opinions positively about the necessity of physical activity and sports at school for children with hemophilia. The results showed that the collaborative design of this prototype of an innovative educational tool positively influenced the opinions of fathers, mothers, and teachers about the role of physical activity and sports at school, for their children with hemophilia.

Conclusion. Although the choice of physical activity or sport must be individual and must be discussed with the psychologist, parents, teachers, and children, this hemophilia “team” must discuss the risks and benefits of different sports, taking account of the physical and psychological conditions, because for all these children, physical activity and exercise have many positive benefits for health and can help self-esteem, learning, and inclusion in schools.

Background. The psychological health of young people in Sweden has declined since measurements began to be taken in 1985. The reasons for the increase in stress and decline in psychological well-being among adolescents have been debated during the past few years.

Objective. The aims of this study were to explore: 1) pupils’ experience of student health services, family, friends, recuperation and the learning environment; 2) whether there is a difference between introverted and extroverted pupils’ sense of well-being, perceived stress, views of the learning environment, and relationships with friends and family; and 3) the degree to which the different aspects of school life predict well-being and stress. 

Design. Data were collected by means of a web survey in which 1045 respondents participated. 

Results. The results showed that there are significant differences in perceptions of well-being and stress depending on gender and the type of study program pupils were enrolled in. The results also revealed significant differences between introverts’ and extraverts’ relationships with family and friends, experience of the learning environment, and reported well-being and stress. A series of hierarchical linear regressions revealed that there were several factors affecting pupils’ reported well-being and stress. The learning environment and relationships with family and friends were significant predictors for both outcome variables. Pupils’ ability to recuperate from their work was found to be the most impactful predictor for well-being and stress. 

Conclusion. Our results suggest that the way in which teachers interact with pupils is an important factor influencing pupils’ experience of well-being and stress. Furthermore, our results suggest that pupils would benefit from student health services being made more visible and pro-active in their interaction with students.

Background. Thepriority for today's educational psychologists in Lithuanian schools is to promote psycho-educational activities aimed at fostering children’s well-being. School psychologists are to provide services for, and consult with, children and adolescents with mental health challenges, in order to facilitate their transitions to positive developmental trajectories. Therefore, it is important to test the construct validity of the adolescent social emotional health survey (SEHS-S) in a Lithuanian sample.

Objective. To investigate the social emotional health, empathy, and self-esteem of a Lithuanian adolescent sample using the adolescent Social Emotional Health Survey (SEHS-S), as well as to perform regression and confirmatory factor analysis.

Design. We used the Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (SEHS-S)(Furlong et al., 2014), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI)(Davis, 1980), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES) (M. Rosenberg, 1989). The sample was comprised of 935 students (12-18 years old) from various Lithuanian schools: 482 boys and 453 girls. 

Results. The self–esteem of the adolescent boys was higher than that of the adolescent girls. A positive correlation between the adolescents’ social emotional health and their self-esteem and empathy was identified.  The strongest predictors of the adolescents’ social and emotional health included empathic concern, self-esteem, and perspective-taking. The confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the validity of the structural model of the Lithuanian version of the SEHS-S survey.

Conclusion.The findings of the regression and confirmatory factor analysis supported the use of the SEHS-S as a valid and reliable instrument for mental health research with the Lithuanian adolescents. School psychologists will be able to use the Lithuanian version of SEHS–S surveyto monitor adolescent social emotional health.

Background. Supporting pupils’ social, emotional, and mental health (SEMH) development is a task that schools are expected to undertake in England, yet many staff members find it challenging due to their belief that they don’t possess the necessary skills.

Objective. To evaluate a commercially available, training resource, The Emotional Wellbeing Toolkit, aimed at raising the skills of adults working with children in the SEMH area.

Design. The Toolkit was adapted and used as training material by a professional team comprised of educational psychologists, clinical psychologists, and specialist teachers, for schools within an eastern region in England. A mixed methodology was employed to evaluate the usefulness of the Toolkit as a training resource, as well as its perceived effectiveness in raising the skills of school professionals working within the SEMH area. Qualitative as well as quantitative data was gathered from the two groups participating in training, as school staff delegates, and as facilitators of training delivery. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used for data analysis.

Results. The findings suggest evidence of improved skills and knowledge in the area of SEMH, with some specific impact on delegates’ practice. Implications for practice are discussed.

Background. Children with deficits in self-regulation often perform worse in school and are less accepted by peers. However, self-regulation can be trained and developed by making detailed plans to achieve specific goals. One such strategy is WOOP (it includes thinking about wishes, outcomes, and obstacles, and creating a plan to achieve a goal), known in the literature as MCII, or if-then plans. 

Objective. Noting the encouraging results of the WOOP method, we aimed to evaluate whether WOOP has the potential to ameliorate self-regulation deficits on a day-to-day-level .

Design. In total, 49 school-aged children (M= 11.2 years, SD= 8.4 months) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) Condition 1, underwent a WOOP intervention; and 2) Condition 2,  performed the intervention without contrasting obstacles and planning. The self-regulation abilities were assessed each day over an 18-day survey period by both the children themselves and their parents. ADHD symptom-severity was assessed as a proxy for self-regulation; specifically, we used six items from the Conners 3 scale and the German adaptation of the Brief Self-Control Scale.

Results.The children in both conditions demonstrated increased self-regulation, according to their self-reports at the beginning and end of the survey period. The parents reported different progressions of the two conditions over the survey period, but these did not differ significantly. In addition, both conditions  are helpful to improve children's self-regulation in daily life. 

Conclusion. Further research on implementing practicable interventions in schoolchildren´s daily life is highly recommended.

Background. In Sweden, teachers are subject to high turnover, unfavorable working conditions, and high incidence of stress-related disorders. The aim of the present study was to (a) assess teachers’ perceptions of work-related health and working conditions, (b) examine the relationship among several key characteristics in teachers’ work environment, and (c) examine the importance for well-being of job satisfaction, separation between work and spare time,and recovery from work.

Design. Primary and lower secondary school teachers in Sweden were invited to participate in a questionnaire study assessing five central aspects of health (subjective well-being, physical activity, self-rated health, sleep quality, and health complaints). Building on previous research, the effect of job satisfaction on well-being as well as on health complaints was tested using a mediation model with separation between work and spare time, and recovery from work, as mediators.

Results. Of the respondents, 40.2% scored below the cut-off recommended in the screening for depression, 43.8% qualifiedas leading a sedentary lifestyle, and 33.7% reported insufficient recovery from work. Sixty-one percentreported one or more sleep problems indicative of insomnia. Well-being correlated highly with self-rated health, health complaints, and separation between work and spare time. There is moderate support for the two models used to analyze the associations between job satisfaction and the outcome variables – well-being and health complaints – as both separation between work and spare time, and recovery from work, partially mediate the associations.

Conclusion. The results confirm recent research pointing to the teaching profession as a vulnerable occupational group. Especially disconcerting and relevant for teachers in Sweden are results indicative of problems with recovery from work and insufficient separation between work and spare time.

Background. Children and adolescents currently spend a great deal of time at school and teachers are viewed as a source of social support in different areas of their personal development, such as their career adaptability.

Objective. To provide insight into the way students in secondary vocational education perceive teacher support and to explore the association between perceived teacher support, career adaptability, and other demographic and academic variables.

Design. A questionnaire battery with two main tools, the Teacher Support Scale and the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale, was the data collection method. Subjects were students in the last year of full-time study at public secondary vocational schools and vocational upper-secondary schools. The sample comprised 3,028 participants aged 18–26.

Result. Students perceived the support of their teachers quite positively, with the difference between boys and girls not being statistically significant. The satisfaction of the student with the field of study, academic performance, and satisfaction with the academic success rate predict the perception of teacher support. The level of perceived teacher support positively correlates with students’ overall career adaptability, as well as with all the dimensions of career adaptability, and is also a significant predictor.

Conclusion. Both key concepts, teacher support and career adaptability, have the potential to attract the attention of psychologists working in the educational system.

Background. The problem of students’ adaptation to a new educational level (normative educational crises, according to Slobodchikov, 2008) is considered. Unlike the literature (Barber & Olsen, 2004; Akçinar, 2013; Symanyuk & Pecherkina, 2016; Nisskaya, 2018), we explored this problem from the standpoint of human agency and studied all categories of students to determine the general patterns of overcoming normative educational crises.

Objective. The study aimed to explore the general criteria of agency — capacity to use psychological resources to solve problems and achieve goals — while overcoming normative educational crises (crises of adaptation to new learning conditions).

Design. The participants were 383 students aged 7–18 years (81 first graders, 84 fifth graders, 110 tenth graders, and 108 freshmen). Students’ agency and psychological resources were surveyed at the beginning of the first academic year at the new educational level. Adaptation criteria (informational, behavioral, and affective) were estimated at the end of the academic year. By using the k-means method of cluster analysis, each category of students was divided into clusters with similar agency indicators. We also compared agency indicators, abilities, and personal traits in these clusters by using U-tests and exploring correlation links between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators in each cluster by Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.

Results and Conclusion. In each age category of students, we observed many significant correlation links between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators only in the cluster of students with a high agency level. We also found only isolated correlation links (or absence of links) between the psychological resources and adaptation criteria indicators in the clusters of students with a low agency level. This finding confirms our hypothesis that only students with a high level of agency use their psychological resources to successfully overcome normative educational crises. Students with a low agency level do not use their resources in full during normative educational crises: These students, despite their capacities, have a negative emotional state and problems in learning and behavior. This finding is also true for each age category of students. Thus, without human agency qualities, the intellectual and personal resources of students can remain unused during the period of adaptation and further training, as the results of the study demonstrated.

Background. The study of emotional creativity has not received very much attention in Arab studies. Emotional creativity is a clear concept that appears in the everyday practice of individuals. 

Objective. The present study aimed to examine the effect of a training program on emotional creativity among undergraduate students.

Design. The study comprised 67 undergraduate students at the Hashemite University; the participants were divided between a control group (N=35), and an experimental group (N=32), and data was collectedusing the Emotional Creativity Inventory(ECI).

Results. The results showed that the training program was effective in improving participants' emotional creativity, and a statistically significant difference was found between the control and experimental groups, showing the effectiveness of the training program in favor of the experimental group. The researcher recommends that students begin to be trained in emotional creativity skills from an early age.

Conclusion. The results of data analysis in the current study document the impact of the training program in improving the level of emotional creativity among members of the experimental group. This may be due to the strategies and techniques used in the training program, which contributed to raising the level of emotional creativity.

Background. The Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents In- ventory was developed based on “empirical keying” comparisons of answers to a pull of self-regulation-related items in clinical (drug addicts) and control groups. 

Objective. To reveal differences between adolescents with delinquent behavior from drug addictions and controls using the Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents Inventory and to study their relationships to anxiety, depression, and personal resources. 

Design. 760 adolescents aged 13–17 from three schools of the Murmansk Region of Russia, 288 from eight Russian special education institutions for adolescents with delinquent behavior (prevalent diagnosis was F91), and 108 adolescents having drug addiction filled out the Psychological Risk Factors of Deviant Behavior in Adolescents Inventory. Adolescents from the control and delinquent behavior groups also filled out the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Additionally 280 pupils in the 10th- 11th grades and 99 adolescents with delinquent behavior in the 10th grade and up filled out the Hardiness Test, Life Orientation Test, and Self-Efficacy Scale. 

Results. Data reproduced results indicating higher dissatisfaction with relation- ships with parents, “black-and-white” thinking, a technology addiction tendency and antisocial tendencies, a low level of self-regulation and a high level of risky behavior and sensation seeking in adolescents with drug addictions that could be explained not only by psychological differences but also by different social situations or strategies in responding to items. Adolescents with delinquent behavior also reported higher anti-social tendencies, novelty seeking, as well as lower self-regulation. In both the clinical and control groups, there were reasonable correlations between better self-regulation (lower technological addiction and antisocial tendencies, better self-regulation and emotion control) and personal resources of self-regulation. 

Conclusion. Antisocial tendencies, novelty seeking, and lower self-regulation could be psychological indicators of self-regulatory deficiencies in adolescents with a risk of involvement in delinquent behavior, but further studies are needed to distinguish whether these differences are explained by self-regulation, social situation or strategy of responding to items in adolescents with deviant behavior compared to controls. 

Background. Cultural congruence serves as a measure of the conformity of an adolescent’s behavior to age-specific rules inherent in a particular cultural context. A cultural context is a system of situations with pre-set behavior-regulating rules.

Objective. Rule-based behavior management is known to be an issue in adolescence. Teenagers often defy common rules, thus pitting themselves against adults. In our study, we recruited adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 years (N=699) who completed a questionnaire on the rules that they have to comply with in their day-to-day lives.

Design. Based on 2,498 responses, we identified 70 rules that were mentioned in 98.15% of the responses. We then designed a cultural congruence diagnostics test to measure the extent to which an adolescent’s behavior fits invariable age-specific rules in the Russian cultural context. The rules are combined into four factors: management, safety, studies, and social interaction.

Results. These factors appear to be in line with existing theories on the adolescents’ social context. According to cultural and historical psychology, peers are considered as the most important subjects that adolescents interact with within their social context; this is confirmed by relevant items in the questionnaire. Studies, the factor that dominates in the pre-adolescent age, are still relevant, which is why the test features such factors as studies and management. Safety emerges as an important factor in the cultural congruence test for preschool children and primary school students. This factor helps regulate behavior in adolescence since safety rules are part of the typical rules in the adolescent cultural context.

Conclusion. The test design features the following psychometric properties: internal consistency of the scale (Cronbach’s alpha), discriminatory power (Ferguson’s coefficient), validity, and reliability.

Background. Psychological tension in the family, along with stress and mental and physical illness, are linked to the reproductive health of parents, as well as to the outcomes of infertility treatments and pregnancy overall. 

Objective. To compare stress and negative affect (depression, irritability, and anxiety) in families with induced pregnancies (in-vitro fertilization, IFV) vs. natural pregnancies. The relationship between negative affect and stress in pregnant women was explored in both groups. Finally, the study investigated links between negative affect and partner relationships.

Design. The sample included 308 women and 278 men from couples with natural conception, and 131 women and 102 men from couples with an IVF pregnancy. 

Results. Relatively low levels of negative affective states and stress were found in families with both natural and induced pregnancies. Moderate correlations were found between women’s negative affect and their stress level in both groups. Significant correlations were found in both groups between negative psychological states of the spouses, as well as between negative psychological states and warmth/hostility in marital relations.

Conclusion. The results suggest that psychological states, stress levels, and links between psychological states and quality of family relations are similar in families with IVF and those with natural pregnancies. Further longitudinal research is needed to explore the direction of causal links between the psychological states of the spouses, and between their psychological states and the quality of family relations.

Background. Genetic conditions and susceptibilities dier from other diseases and health-related risks. Genetic information is shared between blood relatives, and therefore a genetic nding can have implications for the wider family.

Objective. The present study investigates people’s views on issues related to disclosing genetic information to relatives. Specically, the study assesses opinions in relation to two issues: 1) whether people have a moral obligation to share their genetic data with family members; and 2) whether healthcare providers should have a legal obligation to share such data when consent is withheld.

Design. A public engagement event was held based on the real-life court case ofABC vs the UK National Health Service (NHS). Participants were provided with information in three phases: first, about the case; then, with progressively more details of the case; and finally, with other relevant information. After being given each portion of information, the participants were asked to disclose their views on the rights and responsibilities related to the sharing of this information.

Results. The results clearly demonstrate that people hold strong and polarized views regarding condentiality, and the moral and legal duties to disclose genetic information to family members. Even when withholding information could have an adverse impact on the health and life choices of relatives, participants disagreed about the legal obligations for healthcare providers to disclose a person’s genetic information to those relatives.

Conclusion. The results suggest that the issues of privacy and disclosure of genetic information are complex and divisive.

Background. Mental fatigue is a state of tiredness, decreased motivation, and increased aversion to performing a task. Mental fatigue is associated with the length of engagement in an activity (time-on-task) and the degree of cognitive e ort required. In addition, mental fatigue can be affected by personality characteristics, such as trait or domain-specific anxiety. ere is a lack of research into associations between mental fatigue and trait anxiety, as well as specific types of anxiety such as math anxiety. 

Objective. This study investigates whether the level of mental fatigue manifested in an EEG taken during the performance of a mixed problem-solving task, is associated with math and trait anxiety. 

Design. An EEG recording was performed on participants in a resting state with their eyes closed in two runs, both before and after they performed a task. e task consisted of three types of stimuli: arithmetic, algebraic, and lexical. 

Results. The results showed that the EEG correlates of fatigue changed be- tween the first and second runs. These changes were not linked with mathematics anxiety. Some significant EEG effects were found for trait anxiety: people with high trait anxiety appeared more aroused and showed less fatigue effects. However, these results did not reach the level of significance after correction for multiple comparisons. 

Conclusion. Overall, our results are in line with the motivational control theory, according to which mental fatigue “resets” when a person switches from one task to another. In our study, the experimental paradigm consisted of three types of tasks, a format which might have prevented fatigue. We discuss the implications of the study for further research into the links between anxiety and mental fatigue. 

Background. Recent research has suggested a unifactorial structure of spatial ability (SA). However, further studies are needed to replicate this finding in different populations. 

Objective. is study aims to explore the factorial structure of SA in samples of 921 Russian and 229 Chinese university students. 

Design. A gamified spatial abilities battery was administered to all participants. e battery consists of 10 different domains of SA, including 2D and 3D visualization, mental rotation, spatial pattern assembly, spatial relations, spatial planning, mechanical reasoning, spatial orientation, and spatial decision-making speed and flexibility. 

Results. The results of the factor analysis showed a somewhat different pattern for different samples. In the Russian sample, the unifactorial structure, shown previously in a large UK sample (Rimfeld et al., 2017), was replicated. A single factor explained 40% of the variance. In the Chinese sample two factors emerged: the first factor explained 26% of the variance and the second factor, including only mechanical reasoning and cross-sections tests, explained 14%. e results also showed that the Chinese sample significantly outperformed the Russian sample in five out of the 10 tests. Russian students showed better performance in only two of the tests. The effects of all group comparisons were small. 

Conclusion. Overall, a similar amount of variance in the 10 tests was explained in the two samples, replicating results from the UK sample. Future research is needed to explain the observed differences in the structure of SA. 

Background. According to numerous studies, people’s development of executive function is a predictor of their successful acquisition of literacy skills. However, the data on the relationship between the development of verbal language and executive function in preschool aged children are insufficient and contradictory. 

Objective. The goal of our research was to study the connection between the three main EF components (working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) and various spoken language skills in children of senior preschool age. It is the first stage of a longitudinal study aimed at understanding the relationship between executive function and language development starting from ages 5–6, and proceeding through elementary school. 

Design. Our study sample included 279 children aged 5–6 years (M = 5.6 years) attending a senior group in Moscow kindergartens (139 boys and 140 girls). e study used NEPSY-II diagnostic complex subtests and the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) test to measure the level of executive functions (working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition). Language development (vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and word generation) was measured by neuropsychological methods (Akhutina, Pylaeva, 2015). 

Results. The results of the study showed significant associations between all EF components and language skills development in preschool children. Oral language skills were more closely related to the level of development of verbal working memory and cognitive flexibility than they were to inhibition or visual working memory. Children with low levels of EF development were significantly less able to cope with tasks such as understanding prepositional structures, understanding similar sounding words, and showing verbal fluency, than children with a high EF level. Furthermore, children with normal and high levels of EF development displayed no significant differences in language development. Thus, the study showed that children with a low level of EF have difficulties with language development. 

Conclusion. Our results provide important details about understanding the relationship between executive functioning and language development in children of senior preschool age. 

Background. Academic success in a higher education institution requires the ability to process large amounts of information in a relatively short period of time, including having proficiency at a high level of basic knowledge, and an ability to cope with stress. Continual study overload, a competitive environment, and ethical dilemmas (e.g. “How should I deal with human suffering?”, “How should I convey the diagnosis?”, “How should I tell someone that palliative treatment is the only option?”, “What if I make a mistake?”) can all result in anxiety and depression. Research has shown that students who show signs of anxiety and depression may have maladaptive cognitive strategies for processing their emotional experiences. In the medical community, the rules concerning one’s own emotions are, on one hand, determined by specific ethical standards (e.g., the idea that physicians should not show their emotions), and on the other, by the stressful situation itself, which requires taking responsibility for another person’s life. The additional stress point is the need for constant study, which requires a pro-active attitude and learning more and more skills. A significant number of physicians tend to ignore their own emotional experiences, or suppress them. The present study deals with indications of anxiety and depression on the basis of such emotional schemas, which we suggest play the key role in the development of emotional maladaptation in medical students. 

Objective. In this study we observe signs of anxiety and depression in medical students and their dependence upon the intensity of dysfunctional emotional schemas. 

Design. The number of participants was 400, comprised of students from general medicine (n = 300) and dentistry (n = 100) at the Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry. 

Methods. We took from the Symptom Check List-90-Revised (Russian version, N.V. Tarabrina N.V.) the subscales related to affective and anxiety disorders: anxiety, depression, interpersonal sensitivity, obsessive-compulsiveness, somatization, and phobic anxiety. We also used 28 items from the Leahy Emotional Schema Scale II (the Russian version, adapted by the authors and Y.A. Kochetkov). 

Results. The medical students fell into two groups: those with low and those with high intensity of the dysfunctional schemas. The groups were distinguished by which of Leahy’s basic emotional regulation strategies, either normalizing or pathologizing, they used. The pathologizing students followed strict, maladaptive rules concerning their emotional experiences. Students with intense dysfunctional schemas also demonstrated signs of anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsiveness, and somatization. The students who saw their emotions as normal demonstrated lower levels of dysfunctional emotional schemas. As stated in Leahy’s emotional schemas theory, such students tend to see their emotions as a normal, important, and meaningful part of their daily lives. Analysis has shown that these types of students exhibit lower levels of anxiety, depression, obsessive- compulsiveness, somatization, and interpersonal sensitivity. Regression analysis demonstrated that emotional schemas are significantly related to emotional maladaptation in students. The analysis also allowed us to determine the association of different emotional schemas with the development of anxiety, obsessive-compulsiveness, somatization, and interpersonal sensitivity. Adoption of emotional schemas correlated with the symptoms of depressive and anxiety disorders. 

Background. Behavioral genetic findings suggest that complex traits, such as mathematical ability, general cognitive ability (intelligence; g), and spatial ability, are influenced by many common genetic variants of very small effects that operate across the ability continuum. Common genetic variants may also be responsible for cognitive deficits associated with rare genetic syndromes, in which whole genomic regions may be affected. To date, relatively few common genetic variants involved in cognitive traits have been identified, and these only explain a small proportion of variance in these traits. 

Objective. The aim of the study was to find associations between mathematics-related traits and single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within chromosomal regions involved in Williams and Prader-Willi disorders. Both disorders are characterized by patterns of weaknesses and strengths in cognitive abilities. Two types of analyses were performed (SNP-based and gene-based), using genotypic and phenotypic data available for 3000 participants from the UK. 

Results. SNP-based tests indicated that none of the SNPs passed the demanding multiple testing correction level for any of the phenotypes. Gene-based analysis suggested that 2 pseudo-genes (i.e., GOLGA8I and WHAMMP3) were significantly associated with intelligence, and 1 gene (i.e., TUBGCP5) was significantly associated with mathematics at 16 years of age. 

Conclusion. The results are consistent with other findings demonstrating that cognitive traits are influenced by many common genetic variants with very small effects. The results also suggest that a small number of these variants may be located in the chromosomal regions affected in Prader-Willi and Williams syndrome regions. 

 Background. While various screening systems are used worldwide for early detection of developmental delay (DD), Russia still does not have such a screening system in place, even though a good prognosis for the cognitive development of a child with DD depend strongly on the time of the diagnosis. 

Objective. The objective of this study was to create a system to rapidly monitor the mental development of four- to five-year-old Russian children, a system that allows for the use of modern information technologies to obtain reliable results. 

Design. This study was carried out with a sample of 1,232 children. For data collection, the multifactor study of mental development tool was used as a part of a so ware complex for longitudinal research. This tool included a much more extensive set of tasks than in traditional tests of abilities, allowing for a wider variation of the factor structure. For the 4-year-olds, 236 tasks were used and 349 for the 5-year-olds. Factor and discriminant analysis were carried out to construct scales for each age group (6–7 points in each), which most accurately predict the diagnosis (Norm/DD). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to verify the prediction model. 

Results. Two scales were elaborated, which coincided with the type of variables combined in each of them regardless of age (for 4-years — simpler and for 5-years — more complex): logical reasoning, motor skills, and general awareness (listed in descending order of contribution to the prediction). SEM confirmed that the selected scales are indicators of the general ability factor, which is the main predictor of the diagnosis. 

Conclusions. Two short scales for the rapid diagnosis of DD in preschool children were constructed, allowing the use of computer technology to timely identify the risk group among 4- and 5-year-olds with high sensitivity and specificity of the forecast (not lower than 95%). 

Background. Exams such as the SAT, ACT, and GCSE are used to give an account of educational outcomes and provide a unified criterion for university admission. The Unified State Exam (USE) aims to fulfill these functions in Russia. All Russian students take two compulsory USE exams, mathematics and Russian, at the end of their school education. 

Objective. Variability in the mathematics and Russian USE scores is vast, both across and within schools. Our study investigated potential sources of this variability. 

Design. The sample included 196 students from regular schools (non-selected students) and 306 students from schools with advanced mathematical curriculum (selected students). The mathematical ability (numerical representation, mathematical fluency), intelligence, basic cognitive functions (working memory, reaction time), and mathematical self-efficacy of the students were assessed. We applied structural equation modeling to estimate the proportion of variability in the mathematics and Russian USE scores explained by cognitive predictors and mathematical self-efficacy. 

Results. In the whole sample, cognitive predictors and mathematical self-efficacy explained 54% of the variation in the mathematics USE scores and 30% of the variation in the Russian USE scores. These effects diminished after the data were analyzed in two groups separately, suggesting that the associations between predictors and exam scores were to a large extent accounted for by group differences (students from regular and specialized schools). 

Conclusion. The students from the schools with an advanced mathematical curriculum exhibited better cognitive performance, appraised their mathematical abilities higher, and achieved higher mathematics and Russian USE scores, compared to the students from regular schools. Within the groups, cognitive and non-cognitive predictors explained a small part of the variation of the mathematics and Russian USE scores. 

Background. Today’s research on human executive functioning (EF) demonstrates a deepening understanding of this psychological concept as a mental process, as it has been assessed in testing contexts. But little effort has been made to approach the executive function from an ecological viewpoint, one which allows its study in the context of real life, and treats this function as simultaneously mental and behavioral. 

Objective and Design. The purpose of the present research was to explore how 37 Colombian children, aged four, six, and eight years old, with typical psychological development, used their executive functions in a daily context, such as school classes. 

Results. Observational analysis revealed that only 40% of the participants could control and regulate their behavior to achieve class goals. In the few cases where executive regulation was observed, socio-economic status and executive performance marked the behavioral patterns used by children to control and regulate their tasks in class. 

Conclusion. Participants in this study showed that, independent of their EF performance level, their ability to use EF to control and regulate a daily activity, such as their behavior in class, depends on their ability to understand the advantages of acting executively. Most importantly, this skill differs among children by variables such as socio-economic status. 

Background. e actual motive may be experimentally diagnosed through study of the system of perceived motivations. However, since perceived motivations are always expressed in terms that are not unambiguous (for a number of reasons, including age, gender, context, etc.), the experimental reconstruction of the actual motive is always as- sociated with an ambiguity in interpretation of the respondents’ perceived motivations. We need to use a method of diagnosing motivations that would allow us to identify, for the groups of students studied, not only the contribution of a particular perceived moti- vation, but also the substantive features of the designated motives, through the pattern of correlations of these perceived motivations.

Objective. This article presents the results of research on the age and gender specifics of learning motivations of high school students.

Design. Experimental identication of their motivational proles was made by means of factor analysis, separately for each of four groups of pupils (in Moscow schools with a traditional learning paradigm): two junior groups (8th-9th grades, 14-15 years old) of boys (62) and girls (59); and two senior groups (10th-11th grades, 16-17 years old) of boys (63) and girls (54).

Results. As a result, a motivational structure specic for the corresponding gender and age was identied and described.

Conclusion. We showed that as a child grows up, the orientation in learning becomes more and more generalized, with a stronger expression for boys than for girls. In the junior group, girls have a motivation that is oriented to the future, whereas boys do not; such motivations in boys are seen only in the senior group and are inextricably linked to the parents’ approval. Both for boys and girls, the content of their motivation for cognitive achievement in the older age group is based on two motives, which are independent at the younger age: curiosity and prestige. However, with girls, apart from a desire to learn new things, the aspiration to differ notably from others and to demonstrate their achievements to others is significantly greater than with boys

Background. The variety of preschools is one of the primary issues of contemporary early education in Russia. The traditional approach focuses on the transmission of knowledge, patterns of social behavior, and assumes teacher-centered interaction between child and teacher. The developmental approach focuses on developing the child’s abilities and using cultural tools, rather than just transmitting educational content. A comparison of different preschool approaches and outcomes may help in choosing the most suitable one for each child.

Objective. The aim of this study is to identify the connection between approaches in preschool and children’s school readiness.

Our hypothesis is that the traditional approach and the developmental approach provide different school readiness outcomes.

Design. Ninety-two preschool students (51 boys and 41 girls) aged six to seven were involved in this study. These children attended preschools in the western and southwestern districts of Moscow. Six preschool psychologists and teachers were interviewed. The research was conducted between 2011 and 2013.

Results: An empirical study proved that most children achieve a high level of cognitive readiness, can interact with successfully peers, and can control aggression; however, they also have difficulties with cooperative relations with their teacher and with expressing their opinion. A comparison of school readiness outcomes of the traditional and developmental approaches showed that the children who attended a preschool with the developmental approach demonstrated a higher level of school readiness: they are able to ask for help, to coordinate their creative intentions with peers, and to empathize with them. Their self-consciousness is greater than that of their peers who are educated under the traditional approach. Also, they demonstrate a greater voluntary readiness for school. Meanwhile, children who attended preschools with the traditional approach demonstrated а higher level of verbal-logical reasoning. 

Background. There have been many psychological studies, which show what factors enhance creative thinking in childhood, including studies on the impact of intelligence, personality, self-esteem, and other characteristics. But little is known of the impact of cultural congruence on the enhancement of creative thinking in childhood. In that regard, it would be interesting to explore whether cultural congruence influences the enhancement of the creative thinking of primary school students.

Objective. This study is aimed at examining the impact of cultural congruence on enhancing the creative thinking of primary school students. Cultural congruence can be described as a personality trait based on compliance with the rules which a society determines appropriate according to age and culture. 303 respondents participated in this study, of which 293 were primary school students aged 8-10 years (M=9, σ±0.5), and 10 were primary school teachers who worked with these children.

Results. The results of this study indicate that children’s compliance with the rules of age-specific normative situations — i.e. the level of cultural congruence– correlate, albeit negatively, with expressions of creative thinking.

Conclusion. The findings in this study provide further evidence of reasons for enhancing creative thinking in childhood, where cultural congruence and its factors defining the preschool child’s compliance with the rules in a normative situation influence the enhancement of the creative thinking of primary school students. This paper is aimed at identifying the impact of cultural congruence and its factors on the creative thinking of primary school students. The previously highlighted fact that cultural congruence has an impact on creative thinking of primary school students may be ascribed to various causes. First of all, it is noteworthy that there are no typical invariable rules within the factors making up cultural congruence which would enhance a child’s creative thinking. This provision defines the essence of the cultural context and the culturally shaped rules regulating the child’s behavior. Thus, the impact of cultural congruence is that it limits creative thinking. This tendency is noticeable in elementary school. The impact of cultural congruence on creative thinking also deals with the fact that socially accepted conventions limit children’s spontaneous activity, since the rules impose particular behavioral patterns on them. Therefore, children focus more on imitation than on finding their own solutions. Not coincidentally, cultural congruence had an impact on subtests, which measured creative thinking through non-verbal materials. These materials dealt with the child’s ability to find unusual ways to use everyday objects, to forecast different consequences of a hypothetical situation, to make specific objects with a set of shapes, to create new drawings from identical figures, and to find figures hidden in poorly structured images.

Background. The relevance of the paper is determined by the study of types, structure of adaptive difficulties and their impact on the student’s personal development in the process of professionalization in the university.

Objective. To examine the psychological characteristics of difficulties that arise in the process of students’ adaptation to university instruction.

Design. The authors divide the difficulty in adaptation into four categories: motivational, communicational, cognitive, and regulatory. For each category, the authors offer pedagogical technologies that promote the personal development of students on the basis of their prevailing difficulties.

Results. Motivational difficulties are related to poor cognitive motivation, poor motivation to master a profession. Communication difficulties are attributed by the authors to poor communication skills. Cognitive difficulties are defined by insufficient general learning skills and a poor capacity for reflection and self-esteem. The source of regulatory difficulties is a lack of self-organization skills and poor self-control.

Conclusion. Correlation analysis confirmed that there are significant connections between, on the one hand, students’ adaptability to the educational process and to their study group, and on the other, the investigated parameters that show their motivational, communicative, cognitive, and regulatory difficulties. Using cluster analysis of the empirical data, the authors identified four main student subgroups with different graphic profiles reflecting their personal difficulties in adaptation to university education; their psychological characteristics are given. Analysis of these difficulties has allowed the authors to offer an optimal psychological and educational strategy for the interactions of each of the subgroups, to optimize their personal development in the educational process.

Background. The variety of preschools is one of the primary issues of contemporary early education in Russia. The traditional approach focuses on the transmission of knowledge, patterns of social behavior, and assumes teacher-centered interaction between child and teacher. The developmental approach focuses on developing the child’s abilities and using cultural tools, rather than just transmitting educational content. A comparison of different preschool approaches and outcomes may help in choosing the most suitable one for each child.

Objective. The aim of this study is to identify the connection between approaches in preschool and children’s school readiness.

Our hypothesis is that the traditional approach and the developmental approach provide different school readiness outcomes.

Design. Ninety-two preschool students (51 boys and 41 girls) aged six to seven were involved in this study. These children attended preschools in the western and southwestern districts of Moscow. Six preschool psychologists and teachers were interviewed. The research was conducted between 2011 and 2013.

Results: An empirical study proved that most children achieve a high level of cognitive readiness, can interact with successfully peers, and can control aggression; however, they also have difficulties with cooperative relations with their teacher and with expressing their opinion. A comparison of school readiness outcomes of the traditional and developmental approaches showed that the children who attended a preschool with the developmental approach demonstrated a higher level of school readiness: they are able to ask for help, to coordinate their creative intentions with peers, and to empathize with them. Their self-consciousness is greater than that of their peers who are educated under the traditional approach. Also, they demonstrate a greater voluntary readiness for school. Meanwhile, children who attended preschools with the traditional approach demonstrated а higher level of verbal-logical reasoning. 

Background. Our empirical research and analysis revealed characteristics of the axiological orientation of students’ personalities.

Objective. We identified the principal types of orientation, dominant values, and attitudes of the personality in the motivational-needs sphere through a variety of validated and reliable techniques and methods.

Design We understand the axiological orientation of the personality as a relatively stable set of values, motivations, needs, and moral structures produced through the lens of actions, in and through various spheres of social life, which describes complex system of a person’s perception of him-/herself, his or her perceptions of others, and his or her attitude towards work and other activities.

Results. The results of the empirical research demonstrate that a set of axiological, motivational, and need characteristics form pragmatic-professional, social-communicative, or individual-egoistic types of axiological orientation of the personality, which in turn describe the subject’s attitude to the surrounding external reality and to him/herself. e pragmatic-professional type of person is dominated by values such as work, results, money, and process. e least attractive value to this type appears to be power. Respondents with a social-communicative type of axiological orientation have altruism, result and money as their main personal values. Values such as egocentrism, power, money, and freedom are a distinguishing mark of those with the individual-egoistic axiological orientation.

Conclusion. This study also addresses how and through what patterns and mechanisms the axiological orientation of students’ personalities is expressed, which could enable professionals to develop educational programs aimed at harmonizing and aligning societal values and the individual’s attitudes. 

Background. Previous research shows that incorrect teacher expectations about students can affect students’ academic success. Moreover, students’ ethnicity was found to be one of the most influential characteristics affecting teacher expectations, which can be based on ethnic stereotypes. Most studies test this relationship by comparing teacher expectations of multiple ethnic groups; however, we propose here another perspective, assuming that the connection between ethnic stereotypes and expectations may be determined by the content of the stereotypes.

Objective. This study examines the influence of students’ ethnicity on teacher expectations and stereotypes, as well as the relationship of teacher expectations and stereotypes toward ethnic minority students, by including the stereotype content model in the analysis.

Design. Thirty-four primary school teachers participated in the experiment in which they analyzed six fictional profiles of students, two of which were experimental. The experimental profiles contained identical information (annual school grade, a teacher testimonial, gender), but differed in names of the students and their parents, and in their migration background. Thus, we manipulated only the information related to ethnicity and migration history of two students.

Results. Teacher expectations about the performance of minority students were al- ways unfavorable compared with expectations about the performance of the majority students, but their expectations about the abilities of minority and majority students, which include teachers’ beliefs about students’ educational skills, attitudes and motivation, and capacity for school work, were mixed. We also discovered that the teacher expectations were positively related to perceptions of competence and not to perceptions of warmth. However, the minority student was evaluated by teachers as just as warm and competent as the majority.

Background. This article reveals the importance of studying the problem of success in foreign language acquisition during the rst stage of study in the modern educational environment. Particular attention is paid to factors of successful foreign language acquisition during the primary-school ages, which depends on cognitive style features, such as reaction type and cognitive control. e content and characteristics of cognitive styles as individual styles of foreign language acquisition are analyzed in the context of a leading activity of primary school students.

Objective. A hypothesis of this research was that success in foreign language acquisition depends on reaction type and cognitive control, particularly the extent of the cognitive styles of impulsivity, re exivity, rigidity and exibility in primary-school students.

Design. To implement the proposed empirical tasks, the author organized and conducted research using a combination of methods intended to study the correlation between success in foreign language acquisition by primary-school students and reaction type as well as the features of cognitive control. A total of 74 elementary-school pupils aged 8-11 years were studied. A direct connection between success in foreign language acquisition and the indicators of the cognitive style “impulsivity — re exivity” was iden- ti ed using mathematical statistics methods.

Results. This study found no statistically signi cant correlation between success in foreign language acquisition and the indicators of the cognitive style “rigidity — exibility”. erefore, the results con rm that success in foreign language acquisition at prima- ry-school ages is determined more by reaction type (impulsive or re exive) than by the features of cognitive control (rigidity or exibility).

Conclusion: The practical significance of the study is that the obtained results can be used in the work of teachers and psychologists to improve the educational process in primary school and to promote the e ective study of foreign language by students.

Background. The ability to understand idiomatic expressions begins to develop at an early age. However, such skill is not achieved within the same age and at the same pace in children speaking di erent languages.

Objective. This study assesses comprehension of idiomatic expressions by Russian-speaking monolingual children aged 4 to 12 and monitoring the age dynamics of gurative language understanding.

Design. 80 children were split in 4 age groups balanced for gender and level of formal education. e participants were asked to identify the correct non-literal meaning of 10 idioms. For each idiomatic expression, children heard three potential interpretations (one correct, and two incorrect ones of which one was literal while the other was overtly wrong).

Results. Age-related di erences were analysed by performing a series of univariate ANOVAs. ese analyses showed that already at preschool age children begin to understand some kinds of idiomatic expressions and that such ability slowly develops throughout childhood. Interestingly, until the age of 6 children predominantly interpreted idioms literally. By the age of 7 their ability to correctly understand the non-literal meanings of idiomatic expressions enhanced signi cantly until it reached a plateau around the age of 12.

Conclusion. The results of the study are in line with those found for children speaking other languages. The findings are interpreted in light of recent theories of language and cognitive development. Potential limitations of the study are also discussed.

Background. In several Nordic countries, the pedagogy in preschools has a social pedagogical ideal. The focus is on development of social competence, aiming to empower children. There is only minimal focus on teaching and academic learning. The aim of this study is to investigate what kind of support children’s concept formation can receive when children are engaged in everyday language interactions with preschool teachers in Norway. Theoretically, the article is based on theories developed from Vygotsky’s (1987) perspectives on language as a mediating tool.

Design. Two classrooms with two preschool teachers and 18 children in each class participated in the study. The preschool was chosen because it especially focused on children’s language learning.

Method. This study is a qualitative study based on video-taped observations in one preschool, and the data are video-taped observations of language interactions between two preschool teachers and children in two preschool classrooms. Most language interactions in Norway occur in everyday conversations such as play, art activities and meals.

Results. The teachers interacted with the children around topics that engage the children and topics they took initiative to talk about. The teachers invited the children in warm ways to use language to make meaning of the shared topic. However, they seldom presented supplementary concepts or expanded the children’s concept understanding with their own knowledge.

Conclusion. The social pedagogical ideal may have made them associate such sharing of knowledge with teaching.

Background. The study of both Russian and international publications issued in the last twenty years revealed a significant gap in the number of studies examining adaptation (general living, psychological, socio-cultural, etc.) in general, i.e., without regard to specific characteristics of the audience, and those describing adaptation of a particular group of people (specific age, ethnic, professional groups, etc.).

Objective. The current paper aims to overcome this gap by offering a closer look at the adaptation processes of international journalism students at Russian universities, in particular, their psychological and socio-cultural types of adaptation. The question that interests us the most is how psychological and socio-cultural adaptation of international journalists to-be can be made easier and whether communication-oriented techniques can somehow facilitate this process.

Design. In this paper, we provide an overview of current research analyzing adaptation from different angles, which is essential for creating a context for further narrower studies.

Results. We discuss adaptation of journalism students in Russia, suggesting ways to make their adaptation in a host country easier and arguing that the development of communication skills can be important for successful adaptation to new living and learning conditions.

Conclusion. We argue that there is a need for more detailed, narrow-focused research discussing the specifics of adaptation of different groups of people to a new environment (since we believe different people tend to adapt to new conditions in different ways) as well as research outlining the role of communication competences in their adaptation processes.

Background. Though many Russian and foreign studies have been devoted to the study of self-control in educational activity, most of the research has been limited to the use of questionnaires or psychodiagnostic methods. The neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the process of cognitive control in the context of learning have still not been sufficiently understood, despite the obvious significance of controlling action for academic success.

Objective. The purpose of this study is to identify the psychological and neurophysiological features of cognitive control in the process of learning activity, for students with different levels of academic success.

Design. This study investigates the control function in first-year students who have varying degrees of academic success. The research design is interdisciplinary and integrates three different approaches: the neurophysiological, psychological, and pedagogical. In the empirical part, 31 first-year students at Saint Petersburg State University (SPbSU) participated in the research. We measured the personal characteristics of the subjects (using the five-factor personality questionnaire as modified by A.B. Khromov), their self-management ability (Peysakhov’s SMA test), characteristics of the event-related potentials of the brain in response to presentation of stimuli in the solving of problems that require searching for an error in a word (electroencephalographic method), response time, and number of errors and corrections. Four types of stimuli were used: the correct spelling of a word, the replacement of a letter with one that is written similarly or sounds similar, or by one that is not similar. The indicators used to measure academic success were the results of the Unified State Examination (USE) and the first (winter) term of the 2016–17 academic year. The data were analyzed by correlation analysis and analysis of variance.

Results. Comparison of groups of students with lower and higher levels of academic success showed significant differences in all the measured groups of variables — personality traits (Emotionality–Restraint factor), components of the system of self-management (Goal-Setting and Forecasting scales), behavioral data from the experiment (number of corrections), and neurophysiological indicators of cognitive control (the components P200, N200, P300, and N400). The results of the study revealed that students with greater academic success are characterized by less emotionality, a higher capability for goal-setting, and a lower capability for forecasting, as well as greater attention and greater engagement in solving the task of finding mistakes. Such students flexibly distribute their efforts depending on the difficulty of the task and are less likely than the less successful students to change their initial answer to the experimental task.

Conclusion. A high level of development of the self-regulation and self-management system potentially improves the process of finding an error which is necessary for better academic success.

Objective. The paper examines knowledge of Romani grammatical categories among Roma children from Bulgaria and Slovakia between the ages of 3 and 6 years.

Design. Roma children from Bulgaria and from Slovakia completed a psycholinguistic test in the Romani language. The test was developed for the first time in Europe to measure an individual’s knowledge of the Romani language (comprehension and production). The newly developed test measured comprehension of categories such as wh questions, wh complements, passive verbs and possessiveness.

Results and discussion. The children’s knowledge is associated with two theories: the ecological theory of Ogbu (1978) and the integrative theory of child development (García Coll et al. 1996). Ogbu’s theory stresses the importance of children’s home culture in their development. According to the theory of García Coll and her collaborators, the family’s home environment and SES are important predictors of language development.

Background. Embodied finger counting has been shown to have cross-cultural differences in previous studies (Lindemann, Alipour, & Fisher, 2011; Soto & Lalain, 2008). However, their results were contradictory in reference to Western populations with regard to the hand preferred: The first study showed that in Western countries — Europe and the United States — participants preferred to start with the left hand (whereas in the Middle East — Iran — they used the right hand); the second study showed that participants in France preferred the right hand.

Objective. Our study aimed to observe these differences in two countries, Spain (Western Europe) and Russia (Eastern Europe part), although taking into account the variety of cultural or ethnic groups who live there.

Design. The observational/descriptive study, together with correlational analysis of the finger-counting pattern (from 1 to 10) used by children aged 10 to 12 who had not been taught to use their fingers for counting, considered factors of cultural origin and hand dominance. The possible effects of this action on cognition — in our case, math achievement — were considered also.

Results and conclusion. The differences in the frequency of the finger-counting patterns might suggest cultural-individual differences in performance; however, the correlational analysis did not reveal that these differences were statistically significant, either for gender or for mark in math. However, hand dominance was a significant predictor of the preferred hand with which to start counting.

Background: The Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits is one of the most comprehensive personality models in modern psychology. The traits, or domains, of the model, provide an extensive framework, which allows researchers to analyse the correlation between the aspects of personality and various aspects of social behaviour. Academic achievement is a key factor in a subject’s success, and a more comprehensive understanding of its potential factors could improve educational programs and teaching strategies. Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to consider the correlations between the FFM (Big Five) personality traits and the academic achievement of university students in various fields of study.

Design: This study has adopted a descriptive analytic approach by exploring previous research data. In the present empirical research, the Big Five factors were measured with the Russian NEO Five-Factor Inventory adaptation by S. Biryukov and M. Bodunov. Academic achievement was defined as the average value of the semester final grades. The Spearman correlation analysis was used for statistical analysis. The sample includes 207 first- and second-year university students in the Linguistics Department.

Results: The analysis of the published data revealed that Western psychological studies show that consciousness and openness, two values in the model, are more closely connected with the peculiarities of the students’ academic achievement in different fields of study, but similar studies conducted in Russian universities do not fully confirm this data. Findings of our research proved that consciousness is more associated with greater academic achievement of Russian linguistics students in most fields of study compared to the other FFM traits, while other traits showed more specific correlations with particular fields of study.

Conclusions: The data suggests that both environmental and internal psychological factors, such as motivation, intelligence, inclinations, abilities, etc. affect academic achievement. However, further research suggests that volitional and cognitive personality traits considered in the framework of various models of personality may have a great influence on academic achievement and should also be taken into consideration. Personality traits, especially consciousness and openness of the FFM, are significant factors of academic achievement. The associations between academic achievement and FFM traits are more prominent in those fields of study that include such features as their relative novelty, difficulty or interest for students (Second Foreign Language, Special Disciplines, and Psychology & Pedagogics).

Children’s questions are an indicator of active cognitive perception of reality. Questions but not answers are relevant in revealing a child’s mental life, consciousness and thinking. The lack of question-asking skills can hinder learning, searching and exploration in children. To determine in 7- and 8-year-old school children the common and variable peculiarities of designing a search process for necessary information concerning an unknown object by volitionally formulated questions, as well as the dynamics of the questioning process throughout a school year. The study was based on an experimental methodology, codenamed Guess what there is in the box, and was conducted in four schools in Cheboksary. The sample comprised 158 primary school first-graders who took part in a confirmatory experiment twice, once in September and once in May. The research showed that 96.3% of the questions asked were search questions. Only 30% of the first-graders initiated their searching activities of their own will without having to resort to the given search algorithm, while 70% did not begin asking questions without outside stimulation. The analysis of the dynamics of children’s question-asking behavior exhibited a tendency to decrease in a number of questions asked over the course of the school year. Primary school children need psychological and pedagogical scaffolding aimed at developing a question-asking behavior as a form of cognitive activity to achieve a possible age potential in development.

Success in the development of cross-disciplinary connections between psychology and pedagogy in today’s Russia depends on many factors, including understanding the historical traditions of theoretical comprehension of educational innovations. To identify the specific influence of psychology on didactic terminology from the early 18th century through the first half of the 20th century. The study was designed based on historiographic, diachronic, and synchronic methods, and context and content analysis of 129 texts (105 words with general usage frequency of 81,397 units were analyzed). It was found reasonable to split the development of psychological-didactic terminology into two stages: the instrumental stage (early 18th century — first half of 19th century) and the reference stage (second half of 19th century — first half of 20th century). The first stage was found to be characterized by psychological terms performing predominantly an instrumental function, that is, describing psychological factors that affect the effectiveness of training. The second stage featured the growing significance of psychological knowledge, not only in solving educational tasks, but also in explaining didactic patterns. During the first stage of development of psychological-didactic terminology, teachers frequently used the psychological terms “teaching”, “ability”, and “diligence”; during the second stage — “teaching”, “senses”, and “development”. Statistical methods were used to prove stable conceptual and terminological connections between psychology and pedagogy.

The research in the field of metacognition for developing reading is not new; metacognition has been used for many years to identify ways to develop students’ reading comprehension. Most previous research has addressed either primary or secondary level students. However, notably few studies have been conducted at the undergraduate level. This study has attempted to initiate strategies to assist first-year engineering students in developing their reading abilities within a Pakistani context. The primary objective of this research was to identify what strategies first-year engineering students use in developing their reading at Quaid-e-Awam University of engineering science and technology in Pakistan. This study used qualitative instruments that included semi-structured interviews with teachers and classroom observations during read-aloud sessions. The data were organized through NVivo version 8 for obtaining nodes, codes, and main themes for interpreting the results. The results of this study demonstrated that teachers should use metacognitive strategies for developing students’ reading abilities. Findings also revealed that reading strategies, such as text scanning, guesses from contextual clues, drawing on prior knowledge, and using a dictionary, are the most important strategies to use for developing the reading skills and comprehension of engineering students. This study has suggested metacognitive strategies be used for promoting students’ reading abilities and that teachers should design and develop more courses using these strategies to enhance the reading and listening skills of engineering students.

This research is based on the ideas of Humanistic-Existential Psychology, a positive approach to personal growth, and modern educational concepts concerning the dynamics of professional and social identity in the stratum of secondary and primary school teachers. The goal of the study is to get an objective picture of the professional and personal changes among Russian teachers under the conditions of school modernization. We offer a detailed model of the semi-structured interview with modern teachers, in combination with observation. The interview consists of 63 questions divided into 9 topics, and deals with issues related to what their professional activities mean to the teachers; the teachers’ evaluation of professional dynamics; their attitude toward various aspects of professional life; and their general world outlook and values. We also briefly describe a pre-interview “warm-up” strategy. This stage of the research resulted in the successful pilot use of the research methodology, and data sufficient to evaluate the initial trends of the analysis of all the data. The study’s main conclusions concern the observation technique, which offers a significant increase in the potential of the interview method, mainly through providing the ability to interpret non-verbal reactions, the level of openness, and the teacher’s trust in the dialogue. Moreover, we must note that, when we asked teachers to answer complicated written questions, their answers, judgments, and arguments varied greatly, regardless of their professional and personal characteristics (employment history, qualification category, the subject they teach, type of school, etc.)

Patterns of the relationship between the development of learning ability as one of the general abilities and metacognitive traits of personality are considered in the article. The necessity of appeal to this issue arises from the peculiarities of the current state of research in the theory of abilities and modern metacognitivism. Despite the ever-increasing number of studies in the field of general abilities and learning ability in particular and in the field of metacognitive processes of the personality, the possible interconnection of this class of processes and the level of learning ability and, therefore, the interpretation of this interconnection are rarely considered. To date these crucial areas are not in sufficient contact with each other. The purpose of this study is to identify and interpret the possible relationship of the level of learning ability with metacognitive processes and qualities of the individual and their organization. The research procedure was based on a comparison of the individual measures of the development of learning ability as a general ability with the diagnostics of the main parameters of the metacognitive sphere of personality, including features of its organization and implementation in relation to the methodology of structural-psychological analysis. This procedure is based on the determination of matrices of intercorrelation and the subsequent interpretation of correlograms of the metacognitive parameters of a person. The main result is that there exists a mutual dependence of characteristics of the level of learning ability and basic parameters of the metacognitive sphere of personality (metacognitive processes and traits). This dependence lies in the fact that an increase in the level of development of learning ability increases the intensity of separate metacognitive personal qualities and the general level of their structural organization. An interpretation of the data is presented. According to it, learning ability, as a significant factor in the level of development of metacognitive processes and personality traits, acquires an additional and quite powerful resource to enhance at the same time its own level because of the organization of these processes and traits.

This article describes the functions of metacognition and the role of these functions in professional pedagogical thinking (PPT): the discovery of the emergence of a problemacy, the organization of cognition processes, and the management of the comprehension and resolution of the problem situation. Thinking is related to the metacognitive activity of a subject. Components and strategies of metacognition are included in the PPT process and define (by means of conscious or unconscious regulation) the efficiency of discovering and solving problems in an interpersonal interaction situation that must be comprehended and transformed. One of the conditions providing for realization of the supra-situational thinking of professionals is a high level of metacognitive activity, although the level of the pronouncedness of metacognitive activity does not depend on the subject’s possessing basic professional education.

We have created and tested new psychodiagnostic techniques aimed at defining the level of forecasting in problem (conflict) situations and at evaluating metacognitive knowledge and activity. The sample group included about 800 people (university lecturers, school teachers, and teachers who train college students). It was proved that the metacognitive focus of forecasting stimulates the formation and development of various forecasting types: proactive, retroactive, and interactive. Forecasting is viewed as a metacognitive component of supra-situational thinking and a component of the cognitive side of communication. Situational and supra- situational types of pedagogical thinking are shown to have different properties and different orientations toward forecasting activity; these properties and orientations determine the differentiation and hierarchization of these types of thinking. It was discovered that the metacognitive properties of supra-situational thinking are achieved through a high degree of integration of all basic forecasting qualities (analyticity, depth, awareness, flexibility, prospectiveness, and validity).

The efficiency of our devised and tested program aimed at perfecting PPT is evident in the dynamics of its objective and subjective properties (an increased level of suprasituativity of thinking among the program participants and the participants’ subjective evaluations of transformation in coping with difficulties in conflict situations). The formation of supra-situational thinking—in particular, of components such as forecasting (in both a narrow and a broad context)—is closely connected with envisaging prospects, including those for one’s own professional and personality development.

This article presents the results of a study of mathematical fluency in high school students. We provide a definition of mathematical fluency and illustrate the relevance of the research by presenting an overview of studies examining mathematical fluency development and its relationship with success in mathematical disciplines.

A computerized test “Problem Verification Task” (Tosto et al., 2013) was administered to 692 high school students from one public secondary school (grades 9/10/11: n = 336/210/146) in the Moscow region. The stimuli consisted of 48 elementary arithmetic equations along with answer options. To indicate a correct answer, participants were instructed to press the corresponding key on the keyboard as quickly as possible.

Two-way ANOVA was used to estimate grade and sex similarities and differences in mathematical fluency at the high school level.

The current study has two primary findings: (1) students differed in math fluency across grades, and (2) there were no sex differences in mathematical fluency at the high school level. ANOVA exhibited significant differences in mathematical fluency among all three groups of students at grades 9, 10 and 11 with a 19% effect size. These results may be associated with the accumulating effects of the educational process: high school students in each subsequent year of schooling demonstrate a higher level of mathematical fluency on average compared to the previous year. At the same time, we observed no sex differences in mathematical fluency at the high school level. The results are discussed in terms of educational effects.

The study presented in this article relies on the principles of the cultural-historical theory, which defines cultural impact as the main driving force behind psychological development. Based on the assumption that culture is a set of normative situations, the study identifies rules that are typical for primary school students in big Russian cities. These rules are grouped into what we refer to as factors of cultural compliance, which ultimately can be seen as indicators of pupils’ cultural congruence. In specifying the cultural congruence of primary school students, we take into account not only the rules of school life but also the whole range of stable rules for children 7- to 10-years-old. Researchers at the Psychology Institute of the Higher University of the Chinese Academy of Science (Wang, Zhu, & Shi, 2011) call such rules usual or contextually usual. We include rules that govern the behavior of children who have cultural differences, so in this article we are talking about the rules that are typical for children of this age in Russia.

The goal of the study was to develop a test to diagnose the level of cultural congruence. The test was exposed to psychometric evaluation for validity, reliability, and discriminatory power. Factor analysis by means of varimax rotation provided for calibration of the rules by consolidating them into factors. These factors underpin the test and include the categories social interaction, academic competence, regulation, obedience, self-service, and self-control. In accordance with the principles employed in psychology, the factors confirm the construct validity of the test in relation to children’s development when they are between 7 and 10 years old. The study confirms that learning is the main activity at this age by introducing a factor that brings together rules inherent in normative situations in the education process. The social setting for psychological development, viewed as a specific relationship between a child at the given age and the environment, is determined by the child’s interaction with an adult. The factor of obedience is the key parameter for children of the age under consideration. New at this age are arbitrariness, self-regulation, self-analysis, and an internal action plan. Self-control is also conceptually linked to these factors.

The study offers a new look at the cultural determination of psychological development in ontogenesis. Validated in the course of the investigations, the test can be used to diagnose cultural congruence — that is, the compliance of a primary school student with rules inherent in normative situations.

Preschool childhood is a time of rapid development. During this period a child`s interaction with significant adults plays a very important role. The parent, as a mediator, defines the “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1984). The common assumption is that to determine a parent’s position, it is important to acknowledge both socio-demographic factors and the parameters which define the socio-psychological aspects of parent-child relationship. Hence, the type of research where a child’s psychological development is studied in the context of the socio-demographic and socio-psychological factors which determine the social situation of development, is very promising.

Based on our previous research (Sobkin, Marich, 2002; Cheie, Veraksa, 2015), a program of experimental research intended to determine the interconnections between the socio-demographic and socio-psychological parameters of parent-child relationships, and the level of a child’s psychic development, was designed. The research was based upon the material obtained through testing 59 children between 5 and 7 years old with specially collected psychological testing methods (Veraksa A.N. etc), as well as from the results of a special sociological questionnaire presented to their mothers (Sobkin V.S. etc). The research was carried out in 2014-2015 in municipal kindergartens of Moscow.

Among the socio-demographic factors analyzed, the most significant results were related to the child’s gender, the family structure, and the mother’s education. Thus, boys showed higher results on visual memory tests, and girls scored better on tests for self-control and social intelligence (higher ability to detect the reason for someone else’s negative emotions). Children from single-parent families had better results on verbal memory tests, but scored lower on those for self-control. Also they had less ability for decentration. The differences in mothers’ educational levels influenced the number and intensity of children’s fears, as well as their inclinations to avoid fearsome situations.

The analysis of features of the parenting position (such as attitude toward one’s future, positive/negative emotional state during the interaction with the child, authoritative/ democratic approach to upbringing) revealed two different strategies which children used to perform executive tasks.

Thus, the present research showed a significant degree of essential connections between socio-demographic factors and parent-child relationships to the specifics of a child’s mental development.

The zone of proximal development is a well-known and frequently referenced term within cultural historical psychology. Nevertheless, it is rarely used in the concrete practice of assessing intellectual development. The majority of proposals for such assessment are based on a behavioral and psychometric conception of development. This study presents a Scheme for Evaluation of Intellectual Development based on the concept of the zone of proximal development and on gradual intellectual development. The Scheme was applied to 160 Mexican pre-school children from rural, suburban, official, and private kindergartens. The Scheme permitted us to determine the zone of proximal development by evaluating the children’s level of external orientation during the solution of new intellectual tasks. Three levels of orientation through external help were established. The results showed that the majority of children from all groups managed to fulfil new tasks after receiving external help, which indicated the existence of their zone of proximal development. Differences were detected in the use of the level of help in all groups. Statistical analysis showed a significant correlation between the level of helping received, the degree of fulfilment of the task, and the children’s socio-cultural group. The results permitted us to establish more precisely the zone of proximal development at pre-school age. We discuss how the concept of the zone of proximal development might be used in concrete psychological practice and research, instead of being only a well-known term at a declarative level.

The article discusses an innovative teaching technology that uses development-focused educational texts (DET Technology) to stimulate school pupils’ intellectual development in grades 5 to 9. It describes the psychological and psychodidactic framework of DET Technology. Development-focused educational texts are distinctive in that they use a framework of academic mathematical knowledge to build up the key components of pupils’ mental experience (cognitive, conceptual, metacognitive, and intentional). Such texts also provide the conditions for the development and usage of students’ personal learning styles. The article outlines the psychodidactic types of development-focused educational texts and the requirements that the psychodidactics proposes for educational texts.

The present study examined the extent to which college students’ academic mindsets predicted their persistence when solving challenging math problems. The study included an experimental manipulation, in which participants initially received either an easy or a difficult arithmetic task. Following the manipulation, all participants solved two target math problems: one that was solvable but very hard and another that was unsolvable.

Time spent attempting to solve each problem served as a measure of persistence. Results showed the predicted pattern for the solvable target problem, but not for the unsolvable problem. That is, for the solvable problem, the more of a fixed mindset participants had, the less persistent they were after completing a relatively difficult arithmetic task than after completing an easy task. The results suggest that, for certain types of math problems, students’ persistence may vary as a function of academic mindset and previous experiences of math success or failure.

The goal of the present study was to describe the organization of a guided activity for problem solution in primary school. The method, which was applied to mathematical problems, allowed us to propose a specific orientation for the proper solution of arithmetic problems by pupils. The study was based on the activity-theory approach applied to the process of teaching and learning. It was carried out with pupils in the second grade of a private school in the city of Puebla (Mexico). The method was used in the classroom during 30 school sessions of 1 hour per day. The methodology of formative experiment was used in the study. Qualitative analysis of the pedagogical process of teaching and learning was conducted. The results show that, after participation in the formative process, the schoolchildren became able to identify essential elements, data, and all relationships among them in order to solve mathematical problems. At the end of the program the verbal external level was raised for the process of orientation and the solution of problems together with the ability to use logarithms independently. We conclude that orientation, as a guided form of activity in primary school, is essential for the development of the ability to analyze problems.

This article examines psychological predictors of inhibition in educational environments as well as various aspects of pedagogical communication, including facilitation, which is aimed at enhancing educational effectiveness and developing students by means of using a particular communication style and the teacher’s personality. The need to study inhibition (the deterioration of teacher-children interactions; the negation of a student’s individuality; the inability to understand and accept students’ viewpoints; teacher-provoked conflicts; and emotional callousness) is substantiated. The essence of psychological predictors as independent variables, changes in which lead to changes in other dependent variables, allowing the prediction of inhibition development, is explained.

The research objective was to identify psychological predictors of the development of inhibition in pedagogical communication.

An empirical study was conducted using standardized techniques for diagnosing communicative attitudes (V. Boyko), developing general communicative tolerance (V. Boyko), identifying aggressiveness (A. Asinger), identifying the level of empathy (V. Boyko), and identifying the degree of pedagogical inhibition (L. Polosova). The sample contained 375 teachers from Yekaterinburg educational institutions, with participant selection made using stratified sampling.

The teacher’s personality features (a negative communicative attitude, low communicative tolerance and empathy, and higher levels of aggression) were shown to be key predictors of inhibition, which itself was found to depend on the length of teaching experience. At the beginning of one’s professional teaching career, the level of inhibition is minimal. However, the level of inhibition reaches its maximum level after 5-10 years of teaching, and after 20 years, there is a sharp decrease in the level of inhibition.

The conclusion of this study stresses the importance of developing strategies to prevent and correct inhibition, which is especially essential for school teachers with 5-10 years of experience.

Determination of the personality’s psychological resources that ensure its resilience to negative effects of the social environment is a priority problem in modern society, science, and education, since we currently see a sharp increase in the number of factors that affect psychological hardiness and security. One of these is intensification of violent and aggressive forms of interaction in educational institutions. Such manifestations are especially dangerous in schools, since, by virtue of their age-specific features, students are the most vulnerable and they subsequently translate the acquired values and behaviors to society as a whole. The goal of this empirical study was to identify teenagers’ psychological resources that determine their resilience to various forms of psychological violence in the educational environment. The study covered four St. Petersburg high schools, with 437 teenagers aged from 16.5 to 17 (189 boys and 248 girls). A questionnaire was developed to divide the subjects into groups with high and low levels of protection (security) against psychological violence in the educational environment. The questionnaire lists forms of psychological violence in the educational environment (identified by theoretical review) that can occur in interpersonal communication between peers and between teachers and students. The respondents evaluated each item of the questionnaire in accordance with the proposed scale of frequency with which each form of violence occurred. Theoretical analysis determined that psychological violence is traumatic for the adolescent personality’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral spheres. The teenagers’ psychological resources of resilience to violence in the educational environment were identified with the aid of psychodiagnostic methods addressing each of them. Our study allows us to conclude that the resources that ensure the teenager’s resilience to the negative effect of psychological violence in the educational environment are: satisfaction with oneself, accepting oneself as a personality with positive and socially desirable characteristics; high level of self-control, well- developed ability to behave in an acceptable way whatever the circumstances; openness and goodwill, self-confidence; perception of the surrounding world as friendly and generous, which gives rise to friendly behavior; holistic perception of the world, experiencing the present moment in one’s life in its entirety, striving for personal development and self-improvement; independence of values and behavior from external factors; significance of such values as achievement, self-development, and high financial position, in combination with a priority on learning and education; explanation as a typical mechanism of psychological protection, search for a reasonable basis for justifying behavior and actions as well as impulsive acts; low level of anxiety, aggressiveness, and rigidity. The results obtained can be useful for researching the resource-oriented approach to psychology, and also for the development of follow-up techniques for ensuring the safety of the educational environment, preventing all forms of violence in interpersonal interaction between students and teachers.

It is well-known that communication is the main source and necessity of human development and activity. It promotes social relationships, self-image and a wide range of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Preschoolers communicate both with their peers and adults. It is traditionally assumed that peer communication greatly depends on the teacher-child interaction, leading role of the adult, and the child’s own activity, which are the main elements of the Russian preprimary education system.

Changes in social situations, reductions in available play time, greater engagement of children in activities and many other factors can affect modern preschoolers’ peer communication. Therefore, the effect of teacher-directed and child-directed teacherchild interactions on preschoolers’ peer communication important to study.

The following methods were applied: peer-communication observation, the behavioral tests ‘Magic room’ and ‘Mosaic’, and the sociometric procedure ‘Two houses’. The sample included 49 Moscow preprimary students aged 4 to 6 year old (25 girls and 24 boys).

The research proved that preschoolers showed better results in child-directed interactions, such as playing skills, compared with a similar situation in which the children were directed by the teachers. Additionally, the level of proactiveness, communication success, conflict resolution, prosocial behavior and emotional response to peer influence did not differ among children.

Thus, the child-directed approach is more beneficial to preschoolers’ communication development than a teacher-directed approach.

This article sets forth the main results of a study analyzing attitudes toward psychoactivesubstance (PAS) effects. These findings demonstrate the conditionality of social, historic, and cultural views of PAS effects. Despite the threat posed by increasing high school and university students’ drug involvement, exploration of this phenomenon in the format of scientific discourse has been limited so far.

In 2014–2015, in Yekaterinburg, Moscow, and Krasnoyarsk a survey to evaluate perceptions of high school and university students about PAS effects was conducted (289 respondents, aged 16–22).The methods used included the semantic differential (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test modified by A.G. Shmelyov), a modified version of the Rokeach Value Survey, word associations, and content analysis.

The use of psychoactive substances is a specific social practice emerging in a certain social context that includes both drug-addicted and PAS-free young people. Examination of the factors affecting the formation of views about PAS effects and the dynamics of youth values is possible by using a bio-psycho-socio paradigm for performing a complex analysis of cognitive, behavioral, and value parameters.

As documented in the respondents’ perceptions, distinctive features that are characteristic of drug addicts and that are seen in their behavior area loss of control over behavior, emotions, and volition; changes in value systems; and a tendency to develop a manipulative communication style.

Within the system of their social perceptions the respondents endowed drug-addicted persons with pronounced negative characteristics (“aggressiveness,” “addiction,” “stupidity,” “light-mindedness”). Still, they stated that drug abusers are capable of being active, decisive, cheerful, generous, and flexible. The value analysis demonstrated that terminal values appreciated by the school and university students included health, true friends, love, happy family life, active life, and self-development. Receiving pleasure through methamphetamine intake and a burst of energy through PAS intake were considered worthless even though the survey demonstrated the respondents’ use of psychoactive substances.

In the modern world, the environment of any educational institution represents a spectrum of ethnic groups and subcultures: a multicultural educational environment. Pupils who are aware of their national identity often demonstrate intolerance toward students of other nationalities, which threatens pupils’ psychological safety. In this article, we present the results of pilot research examining the level of a pupil’s psychological safety in the multicultural educational environment and identifying the criteria that influence a pupil’s psychological safety. The research sample comprised 127 pupils aged 13–14 years from different schools living in various places that differed by the type of settlement, industrial development and level of science and culture. We isolated the following criteria for a pupil’s psychological safety in the multicultural educational environment: satisfaction with the educational environment, protection from psychological abuse and self-confidence. According to pupils, the essential characteristics of safety in the educational environment, regardless of school category and type, are being able to ask for help, protection of personal dignity, interactions with other students, and self-respect.

Empirical data reveal the current status of the psychological safety of the entire sample group (n = 127) and compare indices of psychological safety in the educational institutions under study.

Analysis of the results of our research indicates that protecting a pupil’s personality in the multicultural educational environment has the greatest influence on his/her psychological safety. In addition, a comfortable psychological atmosphere, mutual aid and support of pupils and low levels of classmates’ and coevals’ aggression positively influence the protection experience.

The goals set forth in regulatory documents for the development of Russian education presuppose quantitative evaluation of factors and conditions that ensure students’ achievement of high competence, personality development, and self-realization. Evaluation of intellectual and personality characteristics of first-year university students and study of the relationship among these characteristics thus become important tasks.

The research objective was to evaluate relationships among social and abstractlogical types of intelligence, personality characteristics, and exam effectiveness (performance).

The study sample was made up of 900 first-year university students (55.2% female and 44.8% male) from Tomsk State University who filled in paper-and-pencil forms in Russian: The Evaluation of Choice in Conflict Situations Questionnaire, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, the Self-Organization of Activity, the Reflexivity Type Assessment Test, the Self-Determination Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and the World Assumptions Scale. Scores on the Unified National Examination in Mathematics (UNE in Mathematics) and the first exam results at the university were used to measure academic performance. The data were statistically processed using descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and factor analysis.

The preference for compromising and collaborating strategies indicates a high level of social intelligence and contributes to socio-psychological adaptation of young people to conditions of university education that are new to them, which require greater independence and activity. Social intelligence and abstract-logical intelligence are relatively independent intelligence types.

Social intelligence and personality characteristics are not determinants of scores on the UNE in Mathematics. Probably the process of educating students in mathematics in the graduating classes of Russian secondary schools is replaced by training to solve problems on the UNE, so that students’ individual characteristics in preparation for the test are no longer factors that influence exam effectiveness. A disparity between social and abstract-logical types of intelligence is accompanied by low academic effectiveness. Proportional development of social and abstract-logical types of intelligence may be an important factor in achieving high academic effectiveness.

This study examines the role of cognitive characteristics in the success in learning Russian, assessed through teachers’ grades and test scores on standardized state exams.

This paper examines the relationship between cognitive characteristics, such as nonverbal intelligence, working memory and speed of information processing, and the results of the Unified State Exam for 11^th grade students, the Basic State Exam for 9^th grade students and the traditional assessment of Russian language learning.

This study involved students in the 9^th and 11^th grades from four educational institutions in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions; 427 students were studying in the 9th grade (50.3% were boys) and 398 students were studying in the 11^th grade (44.8% were boys).

This study concluded that expert assessment of Russian language learning is more associated with successful test scores on the Unified State Exam (r = 0.71, p < 0.01) than with the results of the Basic State Exam (r = 0.46, р < 0.01).

This study showed that at the lower and upper levels of secondary education, nonverbal intelligence is a significant predictor of success in learning the Russian language according to expert estimates. In addition, we found differences in the relationship between cognitive performance and success in learning the Russian language as assessed by tests. Nonverbal intelligence contributes significantly to individual differences in scores for the Unified State Exam in Russian, while the contribution of cognitive characteristics on the Basic State Exam is not statistically significant.

This article presents the results of a study of sociometric status and its relation to personal characteristics and educational activities conducted on 96 first-year and 52 second-year students at the Moscow Theatre College. The sociometric study included three sets of questions combining the everyday life and communication of a student: educational activities, leadership and interpersonal communication. To determine the diagnostics of personality characteristics, Cattell’s multiple-factor personality questionnaire 16 PF was used.

The comparative analysis of the group unity sociometric index has shown that there is more mutuality in the choices dealing with interpersonal communication than in the choices dealing with professional activities. The grades that teachers give in actor training appear as a steady focus that determines the degree of leadership/reject not only in the professional but also in the social and interpersonal spheres. The high level of motivation (energy and determination) captured by Cattell’s factor test Q4 is one of the most significant qualities that determines the number of choices in various spheres of student activity (mastering the profession, leadership qualities and interpersonal communication).

Today computer games occupy a significant place in children’s lives and fundamentally affect the process of the formation and development of their personalities. A number of present-day researchers assert that computer games have a developmental effect on players. Others share the point of view that computer games have negative effects on the cognitive and emotional spheres of a child and claim that children with low self-esteem who neglect their schoolwork and have difficulties in communication are particularly passionate about computer games. This article reviews theoretical and experimental pedagogical and psychological studies of the nature of the correlation between a passion for computer games and the school performance of younger schoolchildren. Our analysis of foreign and Russian psychology studies regarding the problem of playing activities mediated by information and computer technologies allowed us to single out the main criteria for children’s passion for computer games and school performance. This article presents the results of a pilot study of the nature of the correlation between a passion for computer games and the school performance of younger schoolchildren. The research involved 32 pupils (12 girls and 20 boys) aged 10-11 years in the 4th grade. The general hypothesis was that there are divergent correlations between the passion of younger schoolchildren for computer games and their school performance. A questionnaire survey administered to the pupils allowed us to obtain information about the amount of time they devoted to computer games, their preferences for computer-game genres, and the extent of their passion for games. To determine the level of school performance we analyzed class registers. To establish the correlation between a passion for computer games and the school performance of younger schoolchildren, as well as to determine the effect of a passion for computer games on the personal qualities of the children, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r-Pearson) was used. Analysis of the results of the study indicates that there is a correlation between computer-game genres and the school performance of younger schoolchildren, that a passion for role-playing computer games adversely affects the school performance of younger schoolchildren and that the time period for a single game determines the extent to which younger schoolchildren have the personality traits necessary to maintain educational motivation and interest in an academic subject.

Using the results of two empirical studies (with different samples and academic subjects), our research was aimed at discovering the significant role of conscious self-regulation, intelligence, and cognitive features in predicting optimal academic achievement. The sample consisted of 406 students (aged 14-16) in the 8th to 11th grades of the Russian formal education system. Conscious self-regulation together with intelligence and cognitive abilities was determined to be a significant predictor of academic success. The Study 1 results revealed that the general level of self-regulation of learning activity and certain regulatory features were significant predictors of different types of mathematical achievements: academic grades, scores on exams, mathematical fluency, as well as solving logical mathematical problems and equations. The present study is the first to show the mediating role of self-regulation in relation to intelligence, cognitive features, and academic success. Study 2 found evidence that conscious self-regulation and intelligence can predict academic achievement in the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences... At the same time, this determination has its peculiarities in particular variables of intelligence and certain self-regulation processes depending on the substantive characteristics of the academic subjects. Regression models of academic success in the humanities identified verbal intelligence associated with vocabulary as highly significant and a definitive requirement for success in these subjects. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that the only significant predictors of success in algebra and geometry were quantitative- relations intelligence and spatial intelligence. The implications of these findings for investigating predictors of academic achievement are discussed.

Play and playfulness are basic features in early childhood education. The elements of play are pleasure, a sense of freedom, and the co-construction of shared meaning through the use of rules or rhythms. Play and learning are closely related in early childhood. But when the focus on the educational benefits of play becomes too strong, the most essential feature of play is lost: children’s pleasure. Young children in group settings often have to adapt to the teachers’ demands related to security, hygiene, and social norms and values. But the playfulness of the teachers helps to overcome differences in power in the caregiver-child relationship and prevents young children from becoming overburdened with strict rules and group discipline. Play and playfulness are a resource of shared pleasure and creativity in learning processes.

Since the turn of the century, politicians in the Scandinavian countries have placed great emphasis on early childhood education and care. They have been especially concerned with lifelong learning in the field of language learning, early literacy, and numeracy. Almost all children between the ages of 1 and 6 years attend a preschool, and the quality of the learning environment is of great importance. This article presents a comparative study of student preschool teachers’ conceptions of the knowledge that they claim to have acquired about children’s early literacy throughout their bachelor education in Norway and in Sweden. The aim is to compare responses to a questionnaire administered to the student teachers and to examine the similarities and differences in the content of and goals indicated in the two countries’ national plans for early literacy. This study is based on sociocultural theories and has a multimethod design. First, through a discourse analysis we examined the national plans for preschool teacher education in Norway and Sweden and studied similarities and differences. Second, we sent a questionnaire to all student preschool teachers at all universities and university colleges in Norway and at the University of Gothenburg. The differences between the Norwegian and Swedish education students were most obviously seen in their responses to the questions about how they work with early literacy. The discourse analyses showed that the national education plans for preschool teacher education in the two countries differ in certain instances but share common ground in others.

Learning through play is a common phrase in early childhood education worldwide. Play is often put forward as the overarching principle for working with young children (Johnson, Christie, & Wardle, 2005). However, if we go beyond the rhetorical level and explore how “learning through play” and a “play-based curriculum” are understood and transformed into practice, we may find differences both within and between countries (Karlsson Lohmander & Pramling Samuelsson, 2014a, 2014b; Pramling Samuelsson & Fleer, 2009).

In this article we discuss the relationship between the concepts of play and learning and describe how they are enacted in everyday practice in early childhood education in Sweden. Starting with a brief presentation of the development of early childhood education, we then reflect on the challenges preschool teachers may encounter when trying to implement a new learning-oriented curriculum (National Agency for Education, 2011) and still trying to keep play as a central dimension in children’s everyday life in preschool.

Project activity has a long history of implementation in education (Kilpatrick, 1918). This article describes the approach to project activity that became widespread in preschool education in Russia in the late 1990s. This approach is based on the cultural-historical theory of Vygotsky (1978), Venger’s (1988) understanding of intellectual giftedness, as well as an understanding of project activity proposed by Leontiev (2000).

At the heart of project activity lies children’s exploration of the space of possibilities — that is, their search for action options that correspond to their personal motives and express their individuality. The main features of project activity are the problem situation to be presented to the child; the subjectivity of all its participants, including teachers; and its nature, which includes its social context.

Three main types of project activity are presented: research, creative, and normative; each has its own structure and value for children’s development. Examples of their implementation in preschool settings are provided. The impact of project activity on all its participants in preschool — children, teachers, parents — is addressed.

The article shows the effectiveness of project activity for educational work with both intellectually gifted and normally developing children.

The negative sociocultural transformations that are taking place in modern society and the resulting psychological transformation of personality and mode of life strongly require searching for ways of providing social safety to the next generation, with teachers being the implementers of this process. Teachers’ professionalism is determined by their willingness to solve personal and socially relevant problems, including the willingness to provide social security for other people, to thwart social risks, and to build constructive interpersonal relationships.

The aim of our research was to reveal and to analyze the psychological factors affecting the readiness of teachers to ensure social security in educational environments.

The environmental factors of social risk have been theoretically characterized. It has been shown that the essential factor in ensuring students’ social security is providing a safe social environment in educational institutions; such an environment provides the learners and the teachers with sociopsychological security and psychosocial well-being. The empirical part of our study was devoted to identifying negative social phenomena in the schools in the Ivanovo region (with the help of a questionnaire administered to 700 students) and to identifying the personally and professionally important qualities of the teachers and the subjective psychological factors of their readiness to ensure social security in the educational environment (through interviewing 300 teachers); the administration of the questionnaires and the interviewing were followed by an assessment of their significance (with the help of a questionnaire administered to 140 teachers). Using factor analysis we identified the relevant indicators and grouped them into six factors of the readiness of teachers to ensure a safe educational environment.

Relevant personal and professional qualities of teachers were revealed; these are the subjective factors of the readiness of a teacher to ensure social security in the educational environment: social anticipation, resistance to sociopsychological stress, social tolerance, professional orientation, responsibility, communication skills.

Data were collected in the analytical and experimental studies to determine ways to improve the organization of educational processes in order to ensure the social security of students and society in general. The identified psychological factors, their relative weight, and content must be considered when designing a system for training teachers and developing in them the required personal and professional qualities.

The interest of psychologists in the study of safety in the educational environment and its psychological characteristics is increasing. The aim of this study was to select, substantiate, and disclose the psychological factors in the educational environment that influence the psychological well-being of pupils. There were three stages in our research: clarifying the level of psychological safety in the schools in the study; revealing the consistency of the teachers’ and the students’ evaluations of the level of psychological safety in those schools; determining the nature of the influence of the psychological safety of the educational environment on the psychological well-being of the students. The study involved 172 teachers and 876 students in Moscow and St. Petersburg schools.

Psychological safety is a condition of educational environments that are free from psychological violence in the interactions of the people in them; psychological safety contributes to the satisfaction of the needs for personal trust and communication, creates for the participants a sense of belonging (the referential importance of the environment), and contributes to their mental health.

The empirical study revealed that (1) the level of the psychological safety of the educational environment in the evaluations of the teachers was higher and had more expressed differentiation than did the level in the students’ evaluations; (2) the psychological well-being of the students was closely correlated with the level of psychological safety for the teachers; (3) such components of the well-being of the students as emotional comfort, self-confidence, a higher level of cognitive activity were developed in those schools with high levels of psychological safety for the teachers.

The results can be useful in educational psychology and environmental psychology as well as when creating technologies to support the safety of school environments and of the people in them, including situations related to minimizing safety violations and reducing risks and threats.

A museum is valued according to its collections, communication and knowledge exchange with visitors (Primo, 1999). Museums should be in dialogue with the public, contributing to their development (Skramstad, 2004) and collective memory (Wertsch, 2004). Social interactions and working in participants’ zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1934/1962) play an important role in non-formal learning opportunities that take place at museums. The National Museum of Natural History and Science (Lisbon University) offers weekly holiday programmes for children and teenagers, aiming at developing scientific literacy in intercultural and inclusive spaces and times, facilitating knowledge appropriation and social participation. We studied these programmes, assuming an interpretive approach (Denzin, 2002) and developing an intrinsic case study (Stake, 1995). The main participants were these children and teenagers, their parents, and museum educational agents. Data collecting instruments included observation, interviews, questionnaires, children and teenagers’ protocols and tasks inspired in projective techniques. Data treatment and analysis was based on a narrative content analysis (Clandinin & Connelly, 1998) from which inductive categories emerged (Hamido & César, 2009). Some examples illuminate participants’ expectancies, their engagement in activities, and the contributions of social interactions and non-formal education to the development of scientific literacy.

This article describes the results of four empirical research studies of teachers’ notions about effective conduct in various pedagogical situations and about communicative competencies, which can help in resolving difficult pedagogical problems. The findings indicate that teachers’ ideas concerning their professional conduct and communicative competencies are rather positive. The majority of teachers identify their conduct in difficult pedagogical situations with that of an “ideal” teacher. At the same time, the results received when the semantic differential was used revealed the ambiguous character of teachers’ assessments of their own communicative competencies. Psychological training focused on deepening teachers’ notions about communicative culture was carried out. As a result of the training, teachers’ notions about their own communicative competencies changed.

Questions connected to the correlation of such notions as “image of the world” (A. N. Leontiev) and “invariant image of the world” (A. A. Leontiev) are considered. The proposition that professional activity is one of the bases for distinguishing invariant images of the world is substantiated. Based on the analysis of the professional activity of lecturers in medical institute clinical faculties, the notion “professional view of the world,” which reflects professional activity in an invariant image of the world, is introduced. The necessity for specifying the notion “professional view of the world” and introducing the notion “professional world,” describing professional measurement of the living space of medical institute lecturers, is also shown; the structure-forming components of this notion are singled out. It is also shown that the systems of relations by which the professional world is determined are by nature meaning relations (D. A. Leontiev).

This article examines the theoretical and methodological justifications for studying students’ research potential. It presents proof of the isomorphic nature of human research activity and research potential as well as of the fluid nature of its development: from research-like behavior to science-based research activity. It defines three functional components (motivational, cognitive, and behavioral) that form the structure of research potential. It further presents the results of empirically studying the cognitive features of master’s students possessing different levels of research potential. It provides data on the dynamics of research-potential components at different educational levels (bachelor’s and master’s programs). Special attention is given to a comparative analysis of evaluations by research tutors regarding their students’ research potential and of the indicators obtained using psychodiagnostic methods.

Collaborative project work facilitates social interactions among peers and between them and their teachers. It allows students to work in their zone of proximal development (ZPD), promoting their knowledge appropriation. It empowers adult students, allowing them to express their voices and their cultures. Inter-empowerment mechanisms are part of this process, facilitating the internalization of intra-empowerment mechanisms. Both of them shape students’ life trajectories of participation (César, 2013a). This work is part of the Interaction and Knowledge (IK) project. During 12 years (1994/1995–2005/2006) we studied and promoted social interactions in formal educational scenarios. We assumed an interpretative paradigm and developed an action-research project (three-year alternative curriculum, 7th–9th grades) and a 10-year follow up. The participants were the seven students who completed this course, their teachers, and other educational and social agents. Data collecting instruments included observation, interviews, informal conversations, tasks inspired by projective techniques, students’ protocols, and documents. Data treatment and analysis were based on a narrative content analysis. The results are mainly focused on one student: Ernesto. His legitimate participation in this course facilitated his inclusion in school and in society. It promoted his socio-cognitive and emotional development and allowed him to internalize intra-empowerment mechanisms. This enabled him to improve his life trajectory of participation.

This study looks at how well students majoring in educational sciences and psychology were able to use spontaneously metacognitive strategies for reading comprehension. Students majoring in education have demonstrated ineffective learning goals and strategies. The results of the study show that only 7 percent of education majors sought to establish logical connections between the text fragments in multiple-choice assessment by contrast with 48 percent of psychology majors. The study showed that the number of education and psychology majors with metacognitive strategy of systematization has increased in the situation of self-formulated answer.

Vygotsky’s name has never been so evoked as it is at the present time, yet the educational scientific community faces an awkward situation. On the one hand, his works have been used as the basis for certain socioconstructivist school reforms that he would surely have completely disapproved of (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 211). On the other hand, the recent collection of his writings (Yvon & Zinchenko, 2012) and other works (Brossard, 1999, 2004; Schneuwly, 2008b) lead us to another interpretation, in which the internal evolution of didactic content is at the forefront of Vygotsky’s precepts. Therefore, although it is unpleasant, we are confronted by different points of view on Vygotsky’s work that need to be investigated and exposed. This article sets out to achieve that objective.

There are considerable differences among the value hierarchies revealed by different methods of measurement. The quantitative measure of such a difference can be referred as the Congruence-Discrepancy Index (CODI). The more congruent the results of different methods are, the higher the CODI is. In the present study I compared value hierarchies obtained by the Schwartz Value Survey and an original instrument based on the constant-sum scale in two samples of adolescents (those in special schools for at-risk adolescents and those in ordinary secondary schools). The results show that the CODI for ordinary school students is significantly higher than that for adolescents recruited from special schools. A significant correlation between the CODI and school engagement was revealed for the ordinary school sample. The possibilities of using the CODI in value research are discussed.

This article analyzes different approaches to defining reflection and reflexivity. The mastery of intellectual operations reveals the role of reflexivity in the development of abilities. The operational aspect of reflection is emphasized in the article. The study is premised on the expectation that the effective realization of intellectual activities and the development of abilities determined by these activities are conditioned by adequate reflection on conscious acts directed toward the performance of educational-cognitive tasks. The data from the experiment show that reflexivity as a personality trait is highly developed in students with high indexes of general intellectual operations. The research findings indicate the role of reflexive mechanisms in students’ acquisition of intellectual abilities. The implications of these findings are discussed.

In this article dialectical thinking is regarded as one of the central cognitive processes. Because of this cognitive function we can analyze the development of processes and objects. It also determines the possibilities for the creative transformation of some content and for solving problems.

The article presents a description and the results of experimental studies. This evidence proves that dialectical thinking is a specific line of cognitive development in children and adults. This line can degrade during school time if the educational program follows formal logical principles, or it can become significantly stronger if the pedagogy is based on dialectical methodology.

The study examined the relationship between self-, peer- and test-estimated intelligence, academic self-concept and academic achievement. Subjective evaluations of intelligence and academic self-concept had incremental predictive value over conventional intelligence when predicting achievement accounting for more than 40% of its variance. The obtained pattern of results is presented via SEM-model which accounts for 75% variance in the latent factor of academic achievement. Author suggests the importance of further studying complex sets of achievement predictors from ability, personality and mediating domains.

An advanced strategic behavior, which we term, “Trojan horse” teaching (THT), is described. In this type of counteractive behavior, a “teacher”, ostensibly helping his or her rival to learn something, really teaches the rival useless or disadvantageous things. This interaction is an object of interdisciplinary research related to the theory of human capital, the theory of agency, knowledge management, the theory of conflict, and to social and educational psychology. Examples of THT in real life, and results of experiential studies, including the administration of a survey concerning people’s beliefs about teaching “with evil intent”, and a set of experiments with participation of adults and children, have been described. Possible directions of artificial intelligence systems development related to THT are described. General relations between: (a) counteraction to learning, and (b) development in spite of the counteraction are discussed.

This article deals with researches on the cognitive component of interpersonal cog­nition and studies a possibility of improving it during teachers' education. Mistakes people make while estimating one another are analyzed on the basis of empirical researches. The author suggests a model describing main interpersonal cognition principles that is capable of minimizing such mistakes. The author describes the researches conducted under her supervision, in which the strategies based on the interpersonal cognition principles were studied. It has been shown that teachers using a model set of the interpersonal cognition principles are much better at es­timating children's personality characteristics, than those who are unable to use them. The author also presents the method called The Development of the Strate­gies of Interpersonal Cognition, and considers forms and conditions of its usage in education of future teachers.

The article is devoted to a number of urgent problems of mental and physical health of people who live in the global community. How we understand what is the world around us, what kind of society we live in and what are behavioural patterns and developmental features in the contemporary situation, and what the requirements of this society are. Changes in the modern child are influenced by an intense evolutionary self-development of modern man. Special attention should be paid to the development of science on the whole and psychological, psychophysiological, psychological and didactic branches in particular whose basis are stipulated in the textbooks and manuals of a qualitatively new generation.

A system genetics approach has been employed to study students’ mental development. Ability development is considered in terms of mastering of intellectual operations. The study endeavors to identify the components of certain abilities consciously acquired by a student in the process of learning. The study was arranged in two directions: the teaching of students to master intellectual operations and use them in their work with training materials, and psychological testing of control and experimental student groups before and after training tests to diagnose the level of intellectual development. The study involved teachers and students of primary and secondary school.

This article discusses the role that psychological culture of class teacher plays in the establishment and maintenance of psychological safety in a modern schoolchild. The problem of protection against psychological abuse within the educational environment of a school is particularly important in the current socio-cultural realm. The article analyzes many pedagogical and psychological studies regarding the problem of psychological education of teachers. It discusses contradiction between the objective need to create a psychologically safe learning environment and the unwillingness of teachers to work on it due to low own level of psychological culture. The author introduced the original structural model of psychological culture of a class teacher, representing the integration of the three main components: the culture of pedagogical refl ection, emotional culture and culture of pedagogical infl uence.

This chapter explains the strategy for the sociocultural reform of education as a socialization institution that plays a key role in the focused development of value systems, standards, paradigms, and behavioral patterns in the population of Russia. The author reveals the role education plays in modeling such phenomena of social development as the social consolidation of society, the civil identity of representatives of various social groups and national cultures, the encouragement of social confidence, the successful socialization of oncoming generations, and the social stratification of the population of Russia. This chapter also considers the benefits of the sociocultural reform of education as a growth driver for the competitive strength of the individual, the society, and the state and for the further design of long-term programs for the social and economic development of Russia, including the federal education-development program.