Methodology of scientific research in pedagogy and psychology. Subject and methods of psychology and pedagogy
The study of age and individual characteristics child is carried out by various methods and techniques.
Under research methods, or private methodological techniques, one should understand various concretizations of the basic methodological principles: systematic observation, conversations, experiments, questioning, testing, etc.
Depending on what specific goal the researcher sets for himself, he can make some changes to the research method. In this case, the term is used methods(concretization of the method in the methodology).
The study of the development of the child's psyche is carried out either in the form of a "longitudinal study" or in the form of "transverse sections". With a "longitudinal study" the development of individual mental processes or the formation of a child's personality is studied over a significant period of time (sometimes over a number of years). In a study carried out by means of "cross sections", the same mental process is studied in groups of children at different age stages of their development or living and being brought up in different conditions. In addition, this form of study is used when the researcher seeks to learn about the mental characteristics of a given moment in the formation of the psyche.
Currently, there is no generally accepted and strict classification of methods educational psychology. Depending on the nature of the tasks (describe, measure, explain and shape the studied mental process, phenomenon or psychological mechanism research methods can be divided into four groups: not experimental(clinical), diagnostic, experimental And for peace methods).
1. Non-experimental methods: observation, questioning, conversation, study of products of activity, monographic and twin methods.
A feature of non-experimental methods is the simple cheating studied phenomena, which does not allow the researcher to penetrate the phenomenon under study, does not reveal the patterns of its change and development, does not explain it.
We will focus on the description of two methods that are not included in general psychology textbooks.
a) The monographic method or clinical study is used, as a rule, for a deep, thorough and long-term study of the age and individual characteristics of individual subjects. This method allows you to record different forms of behavior, activities and relationships of the subject with others in all major areas of life. Case studies can reveal general patterns structure and development of certain mental formations.
This research method is to some extent a synthetic method, because along with observation, conversation, experimental and other methods can be used.
b) A special way of obtaining psychological and pedagogical data is the "twin method". The Essence of a Method - Mapping mental development one egg (monozygous) twins raised in the same or different living conditions. The purpose of this method is to elucidate the influence of the environmental factor and educational influences on the formation of the child's personality, assuming that they have by nature the same heredity, one gene equipment.
2. Diagnostic methods - these are various tests that allow the researcher to quantify the phenomenon under study and make a qualitative analysis. For example, to identify different levels of development of psychological properties and characteristics of the subjects.
Test - (from the English "test" - test, test) - a standardized task, the result of which allows measure psychological characteristics of the subject.
The use of tests and the interpretation of their results depend on the theoretical orientation of the researcher. Thus, in foreign psychological research, tests are understood as a means of identifying and measuring congenital intellectual and other characterological features of the subjects, on the basis of which far-reaching conclusions and forecasts are made about the child's capabilities, about the prospects for his further development.
In domestic psychology, tests are considered as a means of determining present level of development personality. “Diagnostic methods,” points out Ya.A. Wenger, are methods that allow, with the help of relatively short tests, to determine the comparative level of mental development, i.e. its correspondence to some average level established for children of a given age group, or deviations from this average level in one direction or another ”(. P. 67). Thus, the results of any tests reveal the actual (what the child has achieved to date) and comparative levels of the child's mental development, due to the influence of many factors that cannot be identified and studied in test tests. That is why the test results cannot be a sufficient basis for any pedagogical measures. They should serve as a basis for further comprehensive study of the individual characteristics of the child, the conditions of his life in the family and children's institutions. Only on this basis can ways and means of influencing the child be determined.
The use of diagnostic methods requires the researcher to have special psychological preparation, to master the methods of scientific analysis of the data obtained.
The correct application of these methods makes it possible to solve quite accurately, in a relatively short period of time, many important and urgent tasks of pedagogy and psychology: determining the effectiveness of various curricula, determining the influence of social, psychological, and other conditions on the mental and moral development of children, determining the degree of children's readiness for school, professional suitability, etc.
3. Experimental methods. The above methods are just describe and measure, giving the researcher the opportunity to penetrate the phenomenon under study, but they do not reveal and do not explain the patterns of its change and development. The task of explaining the studied mental phenomena is called upon to solve experimental methods.
The peculiarity of experimental methods consists, firstly, in the creation of special conditions of activity that clearly reveal the mental phenomenon under study, and secondly, in changing these conditions in the course of the study.
In educational psychology, there are three types of experimental method: natural, modeling and laboratory experiments.
You can read about laboratory and natural experiment in any textbook "General Psychology".
A characteristic feature of the modeling experiment is that the behavior of the subject in the experimental situation reproduces actions or activities typical of life situations: memorizing various information, choosing and setting goals, performing various intellectual and practical actions.
The use of this type of experiment in studying the emotional sphere of children turned out to be especially productive. By creating special situations, the researcher can trace, firstly, the subjects' difficulties and the corresponding emotional and affective experiences; secondly, behind the conflicts between the various impulses and feelings of the individual; thirdly, the nature of the child's emotional relationship to people, to activities and other manifestations of life; fourthly, for mimic, pantomimic expressions of emotional experiences and feelings.
A modeling experiment is often used in the study of the motivational-need sphere of a personality. The German psychologist K. Levin and his students carried out a wide variety of experiments simulating the need states of a person. In domestic psychology, research into the motivation of children was carried out under the guidance of L.I. Bozovic.
The advantage of a modeling experiment can be considered the proximity of the studied mental phenomena to life situations, although the subjects, acting according to the instructions, know that they are participating in the experiment as subjects.
When studying the children's team, the relationship between members of the team, the degree of satisfaction of the individual with his position in the team, etc. used the sociometric research methodology, which was first proposed by the American psychologist J. Moreno. The methodology is based on various forms of selection of members of this team. For example: "Name three classmates with whom you would like to sit at the same desk, prepare for exams, whom you would like to congratulate on the upcoming holiday, etc." These questions are called criteria choice. This technique can be used both in a group experiment and in an individual one. It has a number of advantages: you can not ask questions aimed directly at clarifying the characteristics of relationships with classmates, but offer to practically choose a partner for joint activities from among classmates.
Depending on the nature of the question, the content of the direct actions of the subjects, the following indicators of the child's position in the system of personal relationships can be identified in the analysis of the material: the number of elections received (popularity or unpopularity in the group); reciprocity of the choices made and received; subjective assessment of one's position in the team or the number of expected choices.
Quantitative analysis of the obtained data makes it possible to determine the student's position in the system of personal relationships, i.e. sociometric status(number of elections received); group cohesion index of the team, i.e. reciprocity factor(the ratio of the total number of mutual choices to the total number of choices), the coefficient of satisfaction in communication (the ratio of the number of mutual choices of an individual child to the total number of choices), the coefficient of awareness of one's position in the team (the ratio of the number of correctly guessed choices to the total number of named comrades).
It must be emphasized that one should not be limited only to quantitative analysis, but Special attention it is necessary to pay attention to the qualitative interpretation of the obtained data. Also, one should not forget that this is not a universal technique, but a technique aimed at solving particular issues.
4. Formative methods.
Main and main feature forming methods, according to the definition of V.V. Davydov, is not a simple statement of the features of certain empirical forms of the psyche, but their active modeling, reproduction in special conditions, which makes it possible to reveal their essence. Through these methods, the researcher can discover the mechanisms of mental development of the child's personality through the active formation of certain aspects and qualities. For example, by organizing experiential learning, one can follow the course of formation logical thinking etc.
Formative methods include: transformative experiment, psychological and pedagogical experiment, experimental genetic method, method of step-by-step formation of mental actions, etc.
Using these methods, one can achieve a restructuring of certain aspects of the educational process and see the impact of this restructuring on the age, intellectual and other characteristics of students, as well as identify internal patterns in the formation of certain mental processes and properties in a child.
Phased or systematic, according to P.Ya. Galperin, the formation of mental actions and concepts acts as a method of the formation of new mental processes and phenomena that is developed and open for observation. The systematic formation of mental actions and concepts as a method of psychological research has developed recently and is associated with the names of Soviet psychologists P.Ya. Galperin and N.F. Talyzina. They experimentally established the main stages through which the formation of any new mental action: the stage of preliminary orientation in the task, the stage of forming an action on material objects or their material substitute models; the stage of the formation of the same action in terms of extended speech, but to oneself; the stage of formation of the actual mental action.
The method of formative experiment in educational activities is used in the form of designing and redesigning experimental school programs and many years of teaching entire classes to these programs. At the same time, experimental learning is built not as an adaptation to the existing, already established level of development of children, but as an active formation of new levels of abilities that are necessary for the full assimilation of complicated programs, i.e. acts as a method of experimental, developing training.
Thus, studying the process of transition to new forms of mental phenomena, the formative methods are most consistent with the object of study of educational psychology - the developing psyche of the child.
The application of the methods of studying children described above should be comprehensive, which will allow the data obtained to be compared, corrected, supplemented with other materials and which will ensure not only a deep and comprehensive study of students, but will also help to find, ultimately, effective ways of teaching and educating them.
In contrast to the usual empirical descriptions of psychological phenomena and facts, scientific research should differ:
1. Evidence of the relevance of the research problem. The unity of theory and research problems. The unity of the problem and its development, which in practice should be the reason for the start of experimental work.
2. The focus of the study on the disclosure of significant relationships and patterns of psychological phenomena or facts of the problem.
3. A scientific hypothesis put forward in advance - a hypothetical answer to the question posed - the problem.
4. Consistency and objectivity in the collection of facts, easy verifiability of their practice.
5. Clear evidence of what is new to penetrate into the depths of the essence of phenomena or facts, to move from superficial knowledge to a deeper analysis of reality.
Psychological phenomena and facts are certain forms of manifestation of the psyche (mental, cognitive processes, acts of behavior, bodily reactions, etc.). Under what conditions, for what purpose and what tasks they are exposed to and scientific analysis - this is already the object and subject of study.
In the process of work, a hypothesis is formed, which must be specific and correlate with the development of the facts of the subject of research. The main requirement for a hypothesis is its testability on experimental material. Confirmation of the hypothesis means the achievement of the goal of the study.
Any psychological and pedagogical research consists of four main stages:
1. Preparatory, or stage of ascertaining experiment. The collected preliminary information about the psychological and pedagogical facts of the educational process makes it possible to put forward a hypothesis - an assumption about any patterns of the subject of study, which are checked at the next stage.
2. The study itself, or the stage of a formative experiment. At this stage, specific methods and techniques for studying the patterns of teaching and upbringing are determined, special conditions (situations) are created for active tracking (monitoring) of changes in the assimilation of new knowledge or in the development and formation of a personality. The results of the formative (training) experiment are recognized to provide access to the study and design of the most effective forms of the educational process.
3. Analysis of the obtained experimental data. At this stage, quantitative and qualitative processing of the material is carried out, first, each separately recorded fact is analyzed and connections and interactions are established between them, then by comparative analysis those facts that are consistently repeated are singled out, they are combined with a hypothesis and essential regularities are found.
4. Interpretation (interpretation) of the data obtained on the basis of the experiment. Identification of the correctness or fallacy of the research hypothesis.
Questions and tasks:
1. How to explain the separation of educational psychology into a special branch of psychology?
2. What are the tasks of developmental and educational psychology?
3. What are the tasks of educational psychology and pedagogy?
4. What is the principle of the activity approach to the problems of pedagogical psychology?
5. What groups of methods are called research?
6. What methods are the main and which are auxiliary methods of educational psychology?
7. What is the difference between a scientific experiment and empirical descriptions of research materials?
8. Compare the method of natural experiment and observation, their application in pedagogical practice.
9. Come up with questionnaire questions to identify extracurricular interests of students.
Themes for independent work:
1. Compile a conceptual and terminological dictionary to define the subject and methods of educational psychology.
2. Describe the main stages of the formative experiment.
3. Substantiate the program of experimental work of the school from the point of view of the psychology of learning.
Pedagogy is similar to psychology in that the object of study is general. This is a man. Of course, here anatomy also comes into contact with them, but this science already considers a person in a completely different section. But it is precisely the first two sciences that study the human psyche, his personality and the manifestation of all personal qualities in a team. Therefore, in many ways, their research methods are similar. All information - both information about the abilities of the brain, and information about the ways of personality development, which is huge in its volume, is obtained through research.
There are quite a lot of research methods, but there are only three initial, basic ones. They form the basis for all other research. These are longitudinal, complex and comparative research methods. Longitudinal is a method of longitudinal sections known in historical science. In order to conduct such a study, it takes more than one year - well, or a year, at least. The bottom line is that an individual or a group of people is studied over a period of time, and all changes that occur in their behavior, psyche, mode of action, actions are recorded. This method allows you to determine what exactly affects the development of a person and how much.
The comparative method is convenient when you need to study people who are in the same group, but react to common stimuli in different ways. It becomes clear what exactly causes these differences, what should be given more "votes" - environmental factors or heredity. By the way, the comparative method is quite effective where it is necessary to study twins that are similar in genotype, but can develop differently.
An integrated research method implies that the object of study is approached from different angles and. The main thing is different specialists. Suppose, when any “non-format” is considered - whether a defective child, or, on the contrary, gifted, the goal of scientists and educators is to find out the reasons why his development went in a different direction than that of his peers. To do this, not only teachers, but also psychologists, sociologists, and doctors are involved in the matter. After all, the reason can be anything. The resulting data is added and analyzed.
After these methods (or, depending on the need, one of them) have been used, the directly empirical research methods that are used by teachers on the spot, in the learning process, go into action. It is observation, experiment, analysis. Here are the three pillars on which pedagogical research is based.
Observation is a passive method. It does not imply interference in the activity of the student; on the contrary, it is precisely the preserved learning conditions that help to obtain a cleaner result. Observation is a purposeful perception of the student over a period of time, with regular fixation of the data received. The method of observation is used both in a group and in individual studies.
The second main research method is experiment. Unlike the previous one, this is already an active method. It is a directed intervention in the activities and activity of students, with the aim of correcting it and, again, fixing the results. Why is this needed? Observation reveals the most general features of human development. An experiment is used when it is necessary to show certain abilities of a person, to form an opinion about a particular character trait. To make this trait manifest, you need to shape events by creating artificial situations. In psychology, such an experiment is most often used, which the subject is unaware of - in order to make the result more objective. After all, when a person does not know that he is being watched, he behaves more naturally, more relaxed. However, in pedagogy, the leader is such an experiment that the subjects know about. This is due to the fact that the abilities that are tested in them most often relate to the strength and quality of mental activity, and in order to show it to the maximum, a person must concentrate and tune in correctly. For example, the simplest experiment is test work in the lesson, when you need, for example, to state in writing what has been said in the lesson over the past half hour. This shows how observant the student is, how attentive he is, how good his memory is. Perhaps it is the experiment itself that is the most effective and popular research method in schools and universities.
If the previous method is valid precisely in the process of activity of the object under study, then the next one is based on the analysis of the results of this activity. It is called - the analysis of activities and products of activity. Thus, there is an assessment system that allows you to monitor the progress of the student during the quarter, trimester, half year, year. Also, a huge help in this matter is the work of students who are submitted for reporting - these are not only control ones. These are term papers, graduation projects, and even theses. Analysis of the results of labor helps to compare the goals and content of training, training programs, with the actual performance of a person. In addition, this method not only reveals inconsistencies on a given item (if any), but also helps to find out in which direction deviations occur and why.
Perhaps someone focuses on the humanities, someone - on the exact ones. Someone is more reverent about homework, someone is about class work, or exams in general. In addition to these methods, there are also such methods as expert assessments and the psychodiagnostic method, but they are used much less frequently. The second is needed, for example, only in the case when pedagogy by itself cannot cope with the problem, and the object of observation clearly needs professional advice.
Answer plan:
method problem. one
Correlation of the concepts "methodology", "method", "technique". one
Methods of pedagogical psychology. 2
Classification of methods. 6
Educational psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the psychological problems of education and upbringing.
method problem.
The problem of the method in psychology, despite its ancient origin, is also relevant at the present stage of development of psychological knowledge. The problem of the method is closely connected with the problem of the subject of science. There are several positions in determining the subject, and, accordingly, the method.
A number of domestic scientists believe that psychology has a special subject of knowledge and a method that should take into account specificity. There is also an opposite point of view, that the phenomena of mental life are the same real objects and may well be studied by general scientific methods. Experimental psychology is, in a certain (historical) sense, the fruit of this opposition. It is the problem of selecting and using a method adequate to the object under study that is one of the key problems of all empirical psychology.
Correlation of the concepts "methodology", "method", "technique".
Method in the most general sense is a way to achieve a goal, a specially ordered activity. In philosophy, the method as a means of cognition is a way of reproducing the object being studied in thinking.
The doctrine of the method is a special field of knowledge - methodology, which is defined as a system of principles and methods of organization, construction of the theoretical and practical activities of the researcher, as well as the doctrine of this system. There are three levels of methodology of science.
1. general methodology: provides the most accurate ideas about the most general laws of development of the objective world, its originality and constituent components, as well as the place and role in it of those phenomena that psychology studies.
2. special methodology, or the methodology of a specific science, allows the latter to formulate its own laws and patterns related to the uniqueness of the formation, development and functioning of the phenomena it studies.
3. private methodology: it is a set of techniques and methods for studying various phenomena by psychology.
Methodology is the broadest concept of the three considered.
A method is a way of organizing an activity. Methods are the main ways and methods of scientific knowledge of mental phenomena and their patterns. Methods must meet the requirements of validity and reliability. Validity refers to the quality of a method that is consistent with the goals of studying and evaluating what it is intended for. Reliability refers to the quality of the research method, allowing you to get the same results with repeated use of this method.
Methodology - a system and sequence of research actions, means (tools, instruments, environment), which allows solving a research problem. That is, a specific implementation of the method, a way of organizing the interaction between the subject and the object of research based on a specific material and a specific procedure.
Methods of pedagogical psychology.
Educational psychology has the main arsenal scientific methods such as observation, conversation, questioning, experiment, analysis of products of activity (creativity), testing, sociometry, etc.
Depending on the level of scientific knowledge - theoretical or empirical - methods are defined as theoretical or empirical. In pedagogical psychology, empirical methods are predominantly used.
1. Observation is the main, most common in educational psychology (and in pedagogical practice in general) empirical method of purposeful systematic study of a person. The observed does not know that he is an object of observation, which can be continuous or selective - with fixation, for example, of the entire course of the lesson or the behavior of only one or several students. Based on the observation, an expert assessment can be given. The results of the observation are recorded in special protocols, where the name of the observed (observed), date, time and purpose are noted. Protocol data are subjected to qualitative and quantitative processing.
Self-observation - a method of observing a person for himself on the basis of reflective thinking (the object of self-observation can be goals, motives of behavior, results of activity). This method is the basis of self-reports. It is characterized by sufficient subjectivity, it is used most often as an additional one.
2. Conversation is an empirical method of obtaining information (information) about a person in communication with him, as a result of his answers to targeted questions, which is widespread in pedagogical psychology (and in pedagogical practice). Answers are recorded either by tape recording, or in shorthand, shorthand (if possible, not attracting the attention of the speaker). A conversation can be both an independent method of studying a person, and an auxiliary one, for example, a preliminary experiment, therapy, etc.
3. An interview as a specific form of conversation can be used to obtain information not only about the interviewee himself, who knows about it, but also about other people, events, etc.
During the conversation, the interview can be given an expert assessment.
4. Questioning is an empirical socio-psychological method of obtaining information based on answers to questions specially prepared and corresponding to the main task of the study. Preparing a questionnaire is a responsible business that requires professionalism. When compiling the questionnaire, take into account:
2) their form - open and closed, the latter should be answered "yes" or "no",
3) their wording (clarity, no prompting of the answer, etc.),
4) the number and order of the questions. In pedagogical practice, no more than 30-40 minutes are allotted for questioning. The order of the questions is most often determined by the method of random numbers.
Questioning can be oral, written, individual, group, but in any case it must meet two requirements - representativeness and homogeneity of the sample. The survey material is subjected to quantitative and qualitative processing.
5. Experiment - the central empirical method of scientific research, which received wide use in educational psychology. A distinction is made between a laboratory experiment (under special conditions, with equipment, etc.) and a natural experiment carried out under normal conditions of learning, life, work, but with a special organization, the influence of which is being studied. One of the most effective and widespread in recent decades (especially in domestic educational psychology) forms of natural experiment is the formative experiment. In its course, changes are studied in the level of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, in the level of mental and personal development of students under targeted educational and educational influence.
6. Analysis of products of activity (creativity) - a method of indirect empirical study of a person through deobjectification, analysis, interpretation of material and ideal (texts, music, painting, etc.) products of his activity. This method is widely (and often intuitively) used in pedagogical practice in the form of analysis of student presentations, essays, abstracts, comments, speeches, drawings, etc. However, in the course of scientific research, the method of analyzing products of activity (creativity) presupposes a specific goal, hypothesis and methods for analyzing each specific product (for example, text, drawing, musical work).
In connection with the specifics of the subject of pedagogical psychology, some of the methods mentioned above are widely used in it more often, others less frequently. Analysis of the products of students' activities, their creativity (analysis of the results of solving problems, abstracts, essays, products of labor, visual creativity of students, etc.), conversation, questioning, a formative (training) experiment, along with observation, are the most accessible and used methods in educational psychology.
7. At the same time weight greater distribution in educational psychology receives a testing method.
Analyzing testing in education, A. Anastasi notes that all types of existing tests are used in this process, however, among all standardized tests, there are most achievement tests. They were created to determine the effectiveness of programs and the learning process. They “usually give a final assessment of the achievements of the individual upon completion of training in them the main interest is focused on what the individual can do by now.
All of the above means that the use of testing in educational psychology is a responsible, ethical, highly professional matter that requires special training and compliance of a person with the requirements of the ethical code of a diagnostic psychologist.
8. Another important research method in educational psychology is sociometry - an empirical method for studying intragroup interpersonal relationships developed by J. Moreno. This method, which uses answers to questions about the preferred choice of group members, allows you to determine its cohesion, group leader, etc. It is widely used in pedagogical practice for the formation and regrouping of educational teams, the definition of intragroup interaction.
"Research procedures" and their types.
1) Analysis of the existing mental phenomena or activities (some "cut").
L.S. Vygotsky criticized this procedure, because the phenomenon had become stereotypical by the time of the analysis and turned into a "fossil". In order to reveal the specifics of mental phenomena, it is necessary to turn to the process of their formation. In the course of the analysis of this process, it is possible to reveal the essential features of a mental phenomenon at the highest stage of its formation and to explain them.
2) Genetic (experimental genetic, genetic modeling).
Formative or learning experiment:
There is a goal setting: to obtain a mental process with desirable characteristics;
The researcher finds a system of conditions under which this goal can be achieved;
The identified conditions are considered to be normative, corresponding to the nature of the phenomenon under study.
Most of all, L.S. Vygotsky, P.Ya. Galperin, A.N. Leontiev.
P.Ya. Galperin sufficiently substantiated this method, characterized its capabilities and methods of implementation - "Method of phased or systematic formation."
V.F. Talyzin described two ways that can be used in this method:
1. theoretical-experimental: the researcher carries out a theoretical analysis of the solution of problems that implement activities and identify the difficulties that students have in solving them.
The constructed theoretical model is tested in the experiment.
2. analysis of existing activities: people who successfully perform this activity are identified. This success is taken as an indicator of the adequacy of its composition, which is subjected to research.
Limitation: the successful completion of any activity by the subjects does not give grounds to believe that its given composition is optimal. The researcher can make a conclusion about optimality.
3) Slice (for example, the method of cross sections) is a study of the existing phenomenon with its division into parts and their detailed description. This method involves the study of participants of different ages, large enough groups to obtain reliable statistical data.
Measurements are taken at the same time period.
But this method does not provide traceability of the true genesis of phenomena. At the same time, with corrective application, it can be adequate for studying the characteristics of the psyche of people of different ages.
The method of longitudinal sections (longitude) - the same areas of the study are used, and it is possible to trace the real transitions from one stage to another.
Sections are made sequentially throughout the genesis.
When using this method, as a rule, all kinds of deviations from the norm (standards), various kinds of defects are recorded.
Classification of methods.
All research methods can be grouped according to the following grounds.
The level of scientific knowledge is theoretical or empirical. Accordingly, methods of theoretical research (approximation, axiomatization, extrapolation, modeling, etc.) and methods of empirical research (observation, conversation, experiment, test, etc.) can be distinguished.
The nature of the actions of the researcher-teacher with the object. It could be:
a) study of the object (all enumeration methods of theoretical and empirical research);
b) processing of the obtained data (qualitative and quantitative, where the methods of correlation, factorial, cluster analysis, etc. are distinguished), different levels of mathematical and statistical processing. To obtain reliable research results, the nature of data processing is important, especially in terms of quantitative (statistical) analysis.
However, it is essential to note that, despite the importance of mathematical processing of research results in any science in general and in educational psychology in particular, qualitative, i.e. interpretive, meaningful analysis is paramount and indispensable.
Purpose and duration of the study: a) to obtain data on up to date object, process, phenomenon, or b) trace the dynamics of their change over time. In educational psychology, as in other branches of psychological knowledge, the study of the object, carried out different methods, can be short-term, pursuing ascertaining, diagnosing goals. But it can also be very long (up to several years, for example). diary entries development of the child), aimed at identifying development, genesis (actually genetic method) any psychological formation of the personality, its properties, etc. On this basis, two method - method cross sections and longitudinal method. Using the first method, a teacher, on the basis of a large amount of material, can obtain, for example, a general characteristic of learning, its dependence on the average, “norms” and deviations from it, distribution curves of students according to different grounds(for example, age, educational success, etc.). The longitudinal method allows us to trace the evolution of the phenomenon, its formation and formation. The advantage of this method over the cross-sectional method is that it solves two problems. I) foreseeing the further course of mental evolution, scientific substantiation of psychological prognosis; 2) determination of genetic links between the phases of mental development. For example, studying the effectiveness and new training program over several years of training the same person, group, class, stream, etc. Widely used in educational psychology, the formative experiment, which often lasts several years, is also a longitudinal research method in its form.
Features of the object of study itself, which depend on what specifically acts in this capacity, a) the people themselves, their mental processes, states, psychological traits, their activities, i.e. the phenomenon itself; b) products of human activity, or c) some characteristics, assessments, indicators of human activity and behavior, its organization, management. Naturally, all these objects are inextricably linked and the differentiation of methods on this basis is very conditional, but for the analysis of the scope of application of each of them in the practical work of a teacher, such differentiation is advisable. In general, in pedagogical practice, in relation to the study of, for example, a student, it is advisable to use observation methods (in particular, the diary method), conversations (questionnaires, interviews) and testing. To study the relationship of students in a class, in a group (for example, group differentiation), along with long-term observation, sociometric and referentometric methods can be successfully used. With regard to the study of products of activity, in particular educational activities, i.e. in which it is embodied, materialized, the method of analyzing the products of activity is the most common. Purposeful, systematic analysis of essays, presentations, texts of oral and written communications (answers) of students, i.e. the content, form of these messages, contributes to the understanding by the teacher of the personal and educational orientation of students, the depth and accuracy of mastering the subject, their attitude to learning, educational institution, the subject itself and teachers. With regard to the study of personal, individual psychological characteristics of students or their activities, the method of generalization of independent variables is used, which requires, for example, generalization of data about one student obtained from different teachers. It is possible and should generalize only data obtained under equal conditions, in the study of personality in various activities.
Analyzing research methods by the nature of the researcher's action, B.G. Ananiev identifies four groups:
1) organizational methods (comparative, longitudinal, complex);
2) empirical, which includes
a) observational methods (observation and self-observation);
b) experimental methods (laboratory, field, natural, formative or psychological and pedagogical);
c) psychodiagnostic methods (standardized and projective tests, questionnaires, sociometry, interviews and conversations);
d) praximetric methods (chronometry, cyclography, professional description, evaluation of work);
e) modeling method (mathematical, cybernetic, etc.);
f) biographical methods (analysis of facts, dates, events, evidence of a person's life);
3) data processing, i.e. methods of quantitative (mathematical-statistical) and qualitative analysis;
4) interpretive methods, including genetic and structural methods.
Based on the methodological principles of psychology, such as consistency, complexity, the principle of development, as well as the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, educational psychology in each specific study uses a set of methods (private methods and research procedures). However, one of the methods always acts as the main one, while the others are additional ones. Most often, with a purposeful study in educational psychology, as already noted, the formative (teaching) experiment acts as the main one, and additional to it are observation, self-observation, conversation, analysis of products activities, testing. In the practical activities of each individual teacher, observation and conversation are the main ones, followed by an analysis of the products of the students' educational activities.
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1. Object and subject of psychological science. The specifics of psychological knowledge
An object is a fragment of an objective, i.e. existing independently of the consciousness of researchers of reality.
The subject is a science-specific angle of view on an object, an aspect of the object itself, specific to a certain branch of science and set by its categorical apparatus, the research methods used by it.
The subject of study of general psychology are:
Cognitive and practical activities;
General patterns of mental processes: sensations, perceptions, memory, imagination, thinking, mental self-regulation;
Differential-psychological features of a person's personality;
Character, temperament, prevailing motives of behavior, etc.;
Fundamental problems: the essence and content of the mental, the emergence and development of the psyche in phylo and ontogenesis.
At all times, mankind has been interested in questions about what a person is: what determines the causes and patterns of his actions, the laws of behavior in society, and the inner world.
An intriguing task was to understand how mental images arise, what consciousness, thinking, creativity are, what are their mechanisms. All these and many other questions are being answered by psychology, which since its inception has been balancing between science, art and faith. What are the difficulties of its formation?
First, it is the science of the most complex of all that is known to mankind. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, starting his treatise "On the Soul", wrote: "Among other knowledge, the study of the soul should be given one of the first places, since it is knowledge about the most sublime and amazing." And the great physicist A. Einstein, getting acquainted with the experiments of the famous psychologist J. Piaget, summarized his impressions in the paradoxical phrase that the study of physical problems is a child's game in comparison with the mysteries of the psychology of a child's game.
Secondly, in psychology, a person simultaneously acts both as an object and as a subject of cognition.
A unique phenomenon occurs: the scientific consciousness of a person becomes scientific self-consciousness.
Thirdly, in psychological research, the difficult and ambiguously solved problem of the objectivity of scientific knowledge is especially acute. Many scientists refused to recognize psychology as an objective scientific discipline, arguing that it is impossible to objectively study the subjective inner world of a person, which is directly open for knowledge only to him alone.
The difficulties of the formation and development of psychology are determined, finally, by the fact that it is a very young science. Despite the fact that questions about the essence and characteristics of the human psyche were raised in the works of ancient and medieval philosophers, scientific psychology received official formalization a little over a hundred years ago - in 1879, when the German psychologist W. Wundt opened the first experimental laboratory in Leipzig. psychology. The word “psychology” itself first appeared in the 16th century. in Western European texts. It is derived from the Greek words "psyche" (soul) and "logos" (knowledge, science): translated literally, psychology is the science of the soul. This definition does not correspond to modern views on psychological science. The title reflects the ideas about psychology, characteristic of the period of its origin and initial development within the framework of philosophy. According to the philosophical understanding of that time, it was the soul that acted as the subject of psychology - the main, essential beginning of objects of living nature, the cause of life, breathing, cognition, etc.
The formation of psychology as an independent, truly scientific discipline also took place against the backdrop of discoveries that were made in the framework of natural science research.
Psychology arose at the intersection of two large areas of knowledge - philosophy and natural sciences, and it has not yet been determined whether to consider it a natural science or a humanitarian one. The words "psychologist", "psychology" went beyond the scope of scientific treatises and were developed in Everyday life: experts in human souls, passions and characters are called psychologists; the word "psychology" is used in several meanings - it is understood as both scientific and non-scientific knowledge. In ordinary consciousness, these concepts are often confused.
Each person has a store of worldly psychological knowledge, the basis of which is life experience. We can understand another, influence his behavior, predict his actions, help him. Being a good everyday psychologist is one of the important requirements for specialists in those professions that involve constant communication with people, such as a teacher, doctor, manager, salesman, etc. The brightest examples of everyday psychology are those works of literature and art, which present a deep psychological analysis of life situations and motives for the behavior of heroes. The content of worldly psychology is embodied in rituals, traditions, proverbs, sayings, parables, rituals that consolidate centuries-old folk wisdom. In this regard, the question arises: is scientific psychology necessary, or, perhaps, the knowledge and experience accumulated in everyday psychology is enough to help a person overcome life's difficulties, understand other people and himself? To answer this question, it is necessary to realize the fundamental difference between worldly and scientific psychological knowledge. Three main differences are seen.
According to the degree of generalization of knowledge and the forms of their presentation. Everyday psychological knowledge is specific: it is associated with certain people, certain situations and particular tasks.
The concepts of everyday psychology, as a rule, are characterized by vagueness and ambiguity.
Scientific psychology, like any science, strives for generalizations. For this, scientific concepts are clearly defined and used, which reflect the most essential properties of objects and phenomena, general connections and relationships.
By the method of obtaining knowledge and the degree of their subjectivity. Everyday knowledge about human psychology is acquired through direct observation of other people and self-observation, through practical trial and error. They are intuitive, rather irrational and highly subjective. Knowledge of worldly psychology is often contradictory, fragmented and poorly systematized. The methods of obtaining knowledge in scientific psychology are rational, conscious and purposeful. The wealth of methods used by scientific psychology provides extensive, varied material, which, in a generalized and systematized form, appears in logically consistent concepts and theories. To test the hypotheses put forward in scientific psychology, scientists develop and organize special experiments, the essence of which is that the researcher does not expect a random manifestation of mental processes of interest to him, but creates special conditions to cause them.
Ways to transfer knowledge. The possibilities of transferring knowledge in everyday psychology from one person to another are very limited. This is due, first of all, to the fact that there are difficulties in the verbal formulation of individual psychological experience, the whole complex range of emotional experiences, at the same time there is a certain distrust in the reliability and truth of this kind of information. This fact is clearly illustrated by the age-old problem of "fathers" and "children", which consists precisely in the fact that children cannot and do not want to adopt the experience of their elders. Each generation learns from its own mistakes. The accumulation and transfer of scientific knowledge occurs in concepts and laws, scientific concepts and theories. They are enshrined in specialized literature and are easily passed on from generation to generation. These differences show the advantages of scientific psychological knowledge. At the same time, we cannot deny the need for everyday experience, which plays an important role in the development of psychology as a science. Scientific psychology:
First, it relies on everyday psychological experience;
Secondly, it extracts its tasks from it;
Thirdly, at the last stage they are checked.
The relationship between scientific and worldly psychological knowledge is not straightforward. Not all professional psychologists are good life psychologists. And the fact that you will get acquainted with the basics of scientific psychology does not mean that you will immediately become connoisseurs of human souls. However, the constant analysis of life situations that arise, using the knowledge that you will receive by studying psychology, will help you better understand other people, the world around you, and ultimately yourself.
The concepts and concepts of scientific psychology influence people's worldly ideas about mental life. Scientific psychological concepts penetrate the spoken language, and people begin to actively use them to describe their states or personality traits.
The result of the increased interest in scientific psychology in society has been the active development of popular psychology, which provides fundamental scientific knowledge to a wide audience, making them simpler and more understandable. The positive role of popular psychology is to form a general psychological culture of society and to attract interest in psychology as a scientific discipline.
2. Relationship between theory and practice in psychology. Methods and techniques of psychological research
The experimental method can be applied in laboratory and natural conditions. The essence of this method is to identify a cause-and-effect relationship between certain properties of mental phenomena. The identification of this dependence contributes to the creation of experimental conditions under which it is possible to obtain more necessary information about the psychic phenomenon under study. When preparing an experiment, one must remember that there are three groups of variable factors: independent, dependent and controlled variables.
The independent variable is the factor that the experimenter introduces into the experiment in order to evaluate its effect on the process.
Dependent variables -- factors associated with the behavior of the subjects and depending on the state of their body.
Controlled variables are factors that can be strictly controlled in an experiment.
Between the independent and dependent variables are intermediate, internal factors that cannot be strictly controlled.
Thus, J. Godefroy notes in his book “What is Psychology”, to experiment means to study the influence of an independent variable on one or more dependent ones with strict control of all other variables, called controlled ones.
Method of questioning and testing.
Questionnaires provide an opportunity to obtain information about large groups of people by interviewing some of these people who make up a representative (representative) sample. Questioning provides an opportunity to identify certain trends and understand the way for further deeper psychological research through testing or experimentation.
Tests are a standardized method used to measure various characteristics of individuals who are the subjects of research. Tests allow you to assess the level of development of intellectual or perceptual abilities, personality traits, character, temperament, etc.
In practice, two main types of tests are used: questionnaires and projective tests.
Questionnaires are based on the ability of a person to consciously evaluate himself and his actions.
Projective tests are designed in such a way that they are more turned to the subconscious sphere, and help to identify such personality traits that a person himself is not aware of. Projective methods include the Luscher color test, the Tree test, the Non-existent animal test, various drawing tests, etc.
Questionnaires are processed according to certain keys, and then interpreted depending on the received data. Our textbook contains tests-questionnaires that are published and can be used for self-knowledge. Projective tests are difficult to process and require special psychological preparation for their interpretation, so they are not used in the textbook.
The method of observation is a descriptive method by which the researcher systematically observes the behavior of another person, the external manifestations of the psyche and draws conclusions about the mental processes, states and properties of this person. Scientific observations have an organized, planned character, during which observation maps are drawn up. This method is often used in the teaching process.
The method of self-observation (introspective) is the most ancient method used in psychology, it involves the observation of a person over his inner, mental world. This method helps in the application of other research methods, as well as for providing self-help in difficult cases and in self-realization.
In psychology, the method of conversation (interview) and analysis of the products of activity (essays, letters, results of professional activity, etc.) are also used.
Our textbook is built in accordance with the structure of practical psychology described above.
We hope that the study of practical psychology will help you in life, study, work and communication with different people.
3. The method of psychoanalysis and its role in the development of psychology. Fundamentals of Gestalt Psychotherapy
Psychoanalysis is one of the first psychological directions that appeared as a result of the division of psychology into different schools. Released in 1900 and 1901 Z. Freud's books "Psychology of Dreams" and "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" are considered to be conditional milestones in the birth of this trend, since they formulated its main postulates. Unlike previous areas, especially Gestalt psychology, in psychoanalysis not only the subject of psychology, but also priorities have been radically revised - not intellect, but motivation comes first. The subject of psychology in this school, as already mentioned, was the deep, unconscious structures of the psyche, and the method of their study was psychoanalysis developed by this school.
In the formation of this school, the leading role belongs, of course, to Z. Freud. Without exaggeration, we can say that the Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud is one of those scientists who largely influenced further development modern psychology, and perhaps directed it along a certain path of development. This is connected not only with the content of his concept, but also with the personal qualities of the scientist. His statements about the priority of the unconscious in the content of the psyche, about the significance of sexual desires and aggression were not fundamentally new for psychology. These ideas were in the air at that time, as evidenced by the works of Janet, Charcot, Liebeault. It was they who gave Freud the idea of the role of hypnosis and suggestion, of the possibility of its delayed effect. Important for him was Brentano's position on intentionality, the purpose of each mental act. Such a goal for Freud was the adaptation of man. This biological determination was one of the most important methodological principles of his theory, its core, explaining the importance of the forced socialization of the child, the need to give a socially acceptable form to sexual and aggressive drives. The disease in this concept is precisely the result of unsuccessful (or incomplete) adaptation.
Although these new trends existed in psychology, Freud, with his perseverance and authoritarianism, with his ambitions and neurotic experiences, with his difficult memories of childhood and adolescence, was needed to systematize them, creating an integral theory so that they could establish themselves in science. Without it, perhaps the concept of the unconscious, which, of course, would have been created, could not have gained such popularity, so quickly established itself in all countries. It would be different, more conformal, traditional in content. At the same time, Freud's intolerance, jealousy for any modifications led him to break with all students and followers. As a result, it is practically impossible to speak of Freudianism as a direction or a school, since the concepts of Jung, Adler, Horney, Rank and other scientists are quite independent.
Depth psychology, unlike behaviorism or Gestalt psychology, never became a school, but rather a set of separate theories of the unconscious. However, to some extent it also served to benefit psychoanalysis. Since each concept has become an original and original view of the unconscious and its role in the mental life of a person, laying the foundation for its own schools and retaining only a relative connection with the original theory.
However, despite the significant modernization of many of Freud's provisions, some of the methodological principles embodied in his theory have remained unchanged. These include the following provisions:
1) understanding of mental development as motivational, personal;
2) consideration of development as adaptation to the environment. Although the environment was subsequently not understood by other psychoanalysts as completely hostile, it is always opposed to a particular individual;
3) the driving forces of mental development are always innate and unconscious and represent mental energy given in the form of human drives or aspirations and striving for discharge (i.e. satisfaction);
4) the basic mechanisms of development, which are also innate, lay the foundations of the personality and its motives already in early childhood. Hence the interest of psychoanalysis in memories of early childhood and traumas received at this age.
The reason for the disagreement was some of the basic principles of Freud, which contradicted both the theoretical and practical, clinical conclusions of his followers. This is, first of all, Freud's pansexualism, which explained all human aspirations and cultural achievements only by sexual desires, while the facts showed that there were other equally important motives. Freud's reassessment of the role of biological determination to the detriment of cultural also provoked a protest. He practically did not take into account the role of social and individual differences, which also have a huge impact on the motivation of the individual. This led to the stereotyping of a person, turning him into a biological individual rather than a social subject with his own, different from others, spiritual world.
Freud considered the laws he discovered to be universal for all people and all peoples.
This applied both to the stages of personality development and to its structure, the content of unconscious drives, and the development of complexes. At the same time, the first studies have already shown that, for example, the Oedipus complex, which occupied a central place in Freud's concept, is determined more by social than biological factors, by the characteristics of upbringing adopted in a given culture, and by the relationship between parents and children in the family. This was already noticed by Jung and Adler, whose results on the study of childhood memories (including their own) differed significantly from Freud's experience. Adler, followed by other scientists, also came to the conclusion that, in addition to sexual and aggressive, there are other equally significant motives that can also become leading in the process of personality formation, for example, the desire to overcome one's inferiority.
Later, other factors appeared that contradicted Freud's positions both in the field of social psychology and in the assessment of the female psyche, the role of the ego and in psychotherapeutic practice.
Freud's refusal to recognize the possible variability in conducting a psychoanalytic session led to his break even with such close students as W. Reich, O. Rank, who created their own psychotherapeutic concepts, although in theoretical terms they departed to a much lesser extent than Jung and Adler. from Freud.
The development of various corrective technologies in other directions (primarily in behaviorism), as well as new personality typologies built on the basis of biological and social differences, stimulated the overcoming of the average approach to a person in depth psychology as well. This was also facilitated by the emergence of data from clinical practice, which testified to the inadmissibility of ignoring the activity and the client's own position.
These facts stimulated the modification of the basic postulates of directive therapy, making it less rigid and more individual.
If the clinical practice with which depth psychology began allowed for subjective and unvalidated ways of exploring the unconscious, then for scientific research it was necessary to standardize the methods, making them more accurate and objectively verifiable. This led to the development of projective techniques that have keys and exemplary standards for interpreting the material. Behind a short time various types of such methods (figurative and verbal) appeared, which became widespread, as well as the method of associative experiment proposed by Jung. The advantage of the new methods was not only greater objectivity, but also the ability to quickly obtain the desired data.
An important moment in the development of psychoanalysis was a change in approach to the problem of psychological defense. If Freud's defense functioned as a reconciliation of an intrapersonal conflict (between the Id and the Super-Ego), then in the new theories of Horney, Fromm, Sullivan and other scientists, it was also used in conflicts between the subject and the environment. Therefore, other manifestations are also included in the protection - such as conformism, aggression, withdrawal, sadism, etc.
The exteriorization of psychological defense, the idea that in the style of communication one can see the symptoms of neurotic experiences and ways to overcome them, contributed to the objectification of research and the development of new types of correction.
Significant discoveries in the psychology of personality, made in other directions, primarily in humanistic psychology, in the theories of social learning of behaviorism, have also interested psychoanalysts. Therefore, in A. Freud's ego psychology, more attention was paid to the conscious motives of a person, and in the theories of Sullivan and Berne - contacts with significant others. Data on the development of motivation throughout a person's life, on the role of creativity in the general hierarchy of needs, led E. Erikson to revise the seemingly unshakable postulates of depth psychology associated with the role of the first years of life. Talking about crises in the process of becoming a person, he introduced into psychoanalysis a new idea for him (excluding Adler's theory) about the integrity of the individual, the need to realize one's identity with oneself and society. Thus, by the second half of the XX century. psychoanalysis gradually began to turn into a theory of personality, although initially it was more of a motivational theory of the individual.
The main provisions of Gestalt - psychotherapy:
1. Man is an integral being, any division into its component parts (eg mind and body) is artificial.
2. Man and his environment constitute a single gestalt, a structural whole, which is called the field organism - environment. The environment affects the body and the body transforms its environment, as well as in interpersonal relationships - the behavior of others affects us, if we change our behavior - then those around us are forced to change.
3. Human behavior is subject to the principle of formation and destruction of gestalts. Hunger - the search for food - the satisfaction of hunger - the completion of the gestalt and its destruction.
4. Contact - the basic concept of Gestalt - psychotherapy. Man cannot develop in an environment devoid of other people. All basic needs are met only in contact with the environment.
How much a person is able to satisfy his needs depends on how flexible he can regulate the contact boundary.
5. Awareness - awareness of what is happening inside the body and its environment. This is the experience of perception of the stimuli of the external world, the internal processes of the body and mental activity (ideas, images, memories, anticipation, fantasies). However, in the civilized world, people have hypertrophied thinking to the detriment of emotions and perception of the outside world. A huge number of human problems are due to the fact that a genuine awareness of reality is replaced by intellectual and often false ideas, for example, about what can be expected from people. How they treat me, etc. (in the words of F. Perzl - "Intuition is the mind of the body, and the intellect is the corrupt girl of the mind", "Drop the mind and get to your feelings"). Gestalt - psychotherapists assume that if people achieve a clear awareness of the internal and external reality, then they are able to solve all their problems on their own.
6. The principle of "here and now" - the actual for the body always occurs in the present, even if these are thoughts, memories of the past or future - they are all in the present moment.
7. Responsibility - the ability to be responsible for what is happening and choose your reactions. The more a person is aware of reality, the more he is able to be responsible for his life, to rely on himself.
The main goal of Gestalt-psychotherapy is to achieve, perhaps, a more complete self-awareness of the external world and, first of all, the world of interpersonal relationships.
4. Object, subject and functions of pedagogy. Object of Pedagogy
A.S. Makarenko, a scientist and practitioner who can hardly be accused of promoting "childless" pedagogy, in 1922 formulated the idea of the specifics of the object of pedagogical science. He wrote that many consider the child to be the object of pedagogical research, but this is not true. The object of research of scientific pedagogy is "pedagogical fact (phenomenon)". At the same time, the child, the person is not excluded from the attention of the researcher. On the contrary, being one of the sciences about a person, pedagogy studies purposeful activities for the development and formation of his personality.
Consequently, pedagogy has as its object not the individual, his psyche (this is the object of psychology), but a system of pedagogical phenomena associated with his development. Therefore, the objects of pedagogy are those phenomena of reality that determine the development of the human individual in the process of purposeful activity of society. These phenomena are called education. It is that part of the objective world that pedagogy studies.
The subject of pedagogy.
Education is studied not only by pedagogy. It is studied by philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics and other sciences. For example, an economist, studying the level of real possibilities of "labor resources" produced by the education system, tries to determine the costs of their preparation.
The sociologist wants to know whether the education system is preparing people who are able to adapt to the social environment, to promote scientific and technological progress and social transformation. The philosopher, in turn, applying a broader approach, asks the question of the goals and the general purpose of education - what are they today and what should they be in modern world? The psychologist studies the psychological aspects of education as a pedagogical process. A political scientist seeks to determine the effectiveness of the state educational policy at a particular stage in the development of society, etc.
The contribution of numerous sciences to the study of education as a social phenomenon is undoubtedly valuable and necessary, but these sciences do not affect the essential aspects of education associated with the daily processes of human growth and development, the interaction of teachers and students in the process of this development and with the corresponding institutional structure. And this is quite legitimate, since the study of these aspects determines that part of the object (education) that should be studied by a special science - pedagogy.
The subject of pedagogy is education as a real holistic pedagogical process, purposefully organized in special social institutions (family, educational and cultural institutions). Pedagogy in this case is a science that studies the essence, patterns, trends and prospects for the development of the pedagogical process (education) as a factor and means of human development throughout his life. On this basis, pedagogy develops the theory and technology of its organization, forms and methods for improving the activities of the teacher (pedagogical activity) and various types of student activities, as well as strategies and methods for their interaction.
Functions of pedagogical science.
The functions of pedagogy as a science are determined by its subject. These are theoretical and technological functions that it implements in an organic unity.
The theoretical function of pedagogy is realized at three levels:
Descriptive or explanatory - the study of advanced and innovative pedagogical experience;
Diagnostic - revealing the state of pedagogical phenomena, the success or effectiveness of the activities of the teacher and students, establishing the conditions and reasons that ensure them;
Prognostic - experimental studies of pedagogical reality and the construction on their basis of models for the transformation of this reality.
The prognostic level of the theoretical function is associated with the disclosure of the essence of pedagogical phenomena, the finding of deep phenomena in the pedagogical process, and the scientific substantiation of the proposed changes. At this level, theories of training and education, models of pedagogical systems are created that are ahead of educational practice.
The technological function of pedagogy also offers three levels of implementation:
Projective, associated with the development of appropriate methodological materials (curricula, programs, textbooks and teaching aids, pedagogical recommendations), embodying theoretical concepts and defining the "normative or regulatory" plan of pedagogical activity, its content and nature;
Transformative, aimed at introducing the achievements of pedagogical science into educational practice in order to improve and reconstruct it;
Reflective and corrective, involving an assessment of the impact of scientific research results on the practice of teaching and education and subsequent correction in the interaction of scientific theory and practice.
5. System of methods and methodology of psychological research
a) In the system of methods of psychological research, an important place is occupied by the study of the products of activity, or, more precisely, the study of the mental characteristics of activity on the basis of the products of this activity. This method turns from a direct study of the flow of activity itself to the study of its products, in order to indirectly judge the psychological characteristics of the activity and, further, of the acting subject; therefore this method is sometimes called the method of indirect observation.
This method is widely used in historical psychology for the study of human psychology in long-gone historical times, inaccessible to direct observation or experimentation.
At the same time, it should not be a question of deriving - in the spirit of idealism - the laws of development of culture from psychological laws, but of understanding the laws of psychological development of a person, relying on the laws of his socio-historical development. In this, our understanding of this method fundamentally differs fundamentally from its essentially idealistic application, which it received, for example, in the ten-volume "Psychology of Peoples" by Wundt, who considered ideological formations as a projection of human psychology. Any attempt to psychologize social, ideological formations, reducing them to psychological patterns, is fundamentally untenable. Psychological analysis, proceeding from the objectively materialized products of human activity, should not replace the socio-historical method of studying them, but rely on it.
The products of children's creativity are widely and very fruitfully used in child psychology for the psychological study of the child. For example, the study of children's drawings has shed significant light on the characteristics of children's perception.
b) An essential link in the methodology of psychological research is a conversation planned by the researcher in accordance with the objectives of the research. The conversation is an auxiliary means for additional illumination of the internal course of those processes that other objective methods based on external activities are studied in their objective external detection. The conversation should not turn into an attempt to shift the solution of research problems from the researcher to the researcher. It can by no means be reduced to a simple recording of direct data from self-observation. The statements of the person being studied should be correlated with objective data, with the whole situation in which the conversation takes place, and be subject to indirect interpretation.
Questions asked in a conversation can (in the study of thinking, for example) be like tasks aimed at revealing the qualitative originality of the processes being studied. But at the same time, these tasks should be as natural and non-standard as possible. In a conversation, each subsequent question of the experimenter should be a new means that serves to indirectly determine those features of the internal operation that turned out to be ambiguous answers to the previous ones. Because of this, they need to vary from case to case. Each subsequent question should be posed taking into account the changed situation that was created as a result of the subject's answer to the previous question. Being planned, the conversation should not be of a template-standard nature; it should always be as personalized as possible. Observance of these conditions presents, of course, certain difficulties; it requires great skill on the part of the researcher, but only under these conditions will the conversation be fruitful.
Such a conversation must either precede or follow an objective study (through objective observation, experiment). She can, finally, both precede and follow him. But it must in any case be combined with other objective methods, and not become a self-sufficient method.
The conversation in psychology receives a different methodological design, depending on the difference in the initial attitudes of various researchers. Freud introduced a peculiar kind of psychoanalytic conversation for the purposes of psychoanalysis. Its task is to lead the interlocutor to the realization and overcoming of the drives repressed from consciousness.
Piaget's "clinical conversation" is another variant of conversation that has become quite widespread in child psychology. Piaget's clinical conversation was structured in such a way as to reveal the exclusively spontaneous representations of the child.
Our conversation includes a conscious and purposeful moment of the influence of the experimental and, in the study of the psychology of children, the pedagogical one.
Along with the above positive private methods of psychological research, in a review of the methods that were actually used in psychology, one cannot fail to mention the questionnaire and test methods in order to subject them to a special critical analysis. The question of questionnaires and tests became more acute with us in connection with the role that these methods played in the vicious and harmful "theory" and practice of pedologists.
c) The questionnaire method aims to collect material for solving a certain psychological problem by interviewing a certain circle of people according to a certain scheme. This scheme is fixed in the questionnaire or questionnaire. The data that is obtained through the questionnaire is not based for the most part on the systematic observation of the person who fills it out and does not allow any verification and differentiated analysis. Therefore, the conclusions that can be drawn from each questionnaire in relation to an individual have not the slightest scientific value.
The sphere of application of the questionnaire method is mainly mass phenomena of a more or less external order. So, by means of the questionnaire method, the reading or professional interests of a certain group of people can be examined.
If the coverage of the subjects in the questionnaire survey is wide, then its depth is insignificant.
It is absolutely impossible to use the questionnaire method to solve any deep psychological problems.
Questionnaires as a means of research are usually statistically processed and used to obtain statistical averages. But statistical averages, as is known, are of minimal value for research if they are obtained as a result of overlapping values that deviate significantly from this average, both in one direction and in the other. Such statistical averages do not express regularities. But in psychology, when studying the highest, most complex mental processes, for the most part, this is exactly the case. Therefore, questionnaires that serve to obtain such statistical averages are of no significant value for in-depth psychological research aimed at revealing psychological patterns.
Having originated in England (Galton's questionnaire in 1880), the questionnaire method in psychology has become especially widespread in America. On the part of European psychologists, he initially met with a negative attitude. Ribot wrote: "The questionnaire method relies on numbers. It is an application of universal suffrage to problems of psychology, and too often it differs little from those questions on all sorts of topics with which journalists address the general public." This was basically the attitude towards this method of a number of other prominent psychologists. Everyone pointed out that the questionnaire method is more suitable for establishing simple external facts than for posing complex psychological problems; it does not provide any reliable data for their resolution.
But the questionnaire method then nevertheless gained some distribution in the study of mass phenomena (shifts of interests, etc.).
The questionnaire method was unacceptably abused in pedological practice. They did not take into account the superficiality, and often the dubious nature of the data delivered by the questionnaires, the illegality of transferring the conclusions obtained as a result of statistical processing to a specific individual, and the grossly anti-pedagogical effect that the often completely unacceptable, meaningless questions of "pedological" questionnaires had on children. .
d) The question of tests is even more acute. The term "test" (test means in English "test" or "test") was introduced at the end of the last century by the American psychologist Kettel.
Tests have become widespread and practical since Binet, together with Simon, developed his own system of tests for determining the mental development or giftedness of children, and Munsterberg somewhat later (in 1910) began developing tests for the purpose of professional selection.
The Binet-Simon tests were then subjected to numerous revisions by Theremin (in America), Burt (in England), and others.
Tests in the proper sense of the word are tests that aim at grading, determining the rank place of an individual in a group or team, establishing its level. The test is aimed at personality; it should serve as a diagnostic tool for prognosis purposes.
The term "test" has recently received a more broad use, extending actually to any task given to the subject in the course of experimentation.
The method of tests in the original specific meaning of the word raises a number of very serious objections. The most important of them are the following.
When two individuals solve or fail the same test, the psychological significance of this fact can be very different: the same achievement can be due to different mental processes. Therefore, the external fact of solving or not solving a test does not yet determine the internal nature of the corresponding mental acts.
At the heart of the test method, which makes a diagnosis of personality on the basis of statistical processing of external data - the results of an individual solving certain tasks, is a mechanistic behavioral approach to personality. The test method tries to make a diagnosis of a developing personality on the basis of a test, divorced from observing the process of its development and organizing this development through training and education.
This error is further aggravated when a prediction is made on the basis of the same test, assuming that the level established by the test at one stage of development will characterize the subject in the future. Thus, they accept the fatal predetermination of the entire further path of human development by existing conditions and, consciously or unconsciously, deny the possibility of reshaping a person: an adult - in the process of social practice, a child - in the process of training and education.
When the same standard tests are presented to different individuals who have gone through a different path of development, formed in different conditions, and on the basis of their decisions they directly conclude about the giftedness of the persons subjected to this test, then they make a clear mistake, namely, they do not take into account the dependence of the results on the conditions of development. . Two students or workers could perform differently on the tests because one of the students had less training and one of the workers had less training. But in the process of learning, the former can get ahead of the latter.
The fact that certain tests are solved by 75 percent of children of a given age in a certain class environment does not give reason to recognize them as an automatic criterion for determining the "giftedness" or mental development of children who are formed in completely different conditions.
To draw such a conclusion, which is the basis of the test methodology, means not to take into account the conditionality of the test results by the developmental conditions of those specific living people who were subjected to these tests.
It is precisely this anti-scientific approach to research methodology, expressed in the fact that the results of development are taken without regard to the conditions of development, that constitutes the theoretical basis for the politically reactionary conclusions of testology.
On the basis that the representatives of the enslaved nationalities or the exploited classes of capitalist society cope worse with tests adapted to verbal education, accessible in capitalist states only to representatives of the ruling class of the ruling nationality, bourgeois testologists have repeatedly concluded that the representatives of these classes and nationalities are inferior. But to draw such conclusions means not only revealing one's political reactionaryness, but also revealing a misunderstanding of one of the basic and elementary requirements of scientific thinking.
The unsatisfactoriness of this method is further aggravated by the fact that standard systems or test scales are used as a diagnostic tool and an attempt is made to stamp personality through tests, the very setting of which is based not on taking into account individual differences, but on neglecting them. Finally, it is impossible not to note the casuistic, sometimes provocative, content of test trials, which usually does not take into account the specific training of a given subject. Giving assignments that are not related to learning, they, however, claim - completely unjustifiably - that conclusions can be drawn from them specifically regarding the learnability of the subjects.
Criticism of the methods of tests and questionnaires ultimately comes down to a fundamental question, the correct solution of which should give a new direction to the entire methodology of our psychological research. It is essentially about understanding the personality and a specific approach to it in the process of research.
One of the main features of the methodology of modern foreign psychological science is its impersonal nature. In the process of research, a person becomes only a test subject for the experimenter, ceasing to be a person who has gone through a certain specific path of development, relates in a certain way to what happens in the experimental situation, and acts depending on this relationship. This direction of research turns out to be fundamentally untenable, especially where more complex mental manifestations of the personality are to be studied.
e) The genetic method is based on the idea that each phenomenon is known in its development.
This idea can receive two sharply different realizations: in the spirit of the evolutionist and in the spirit of the dialectical understanding of development.
If evolution is conceived as only a quantitative growth and complication, and not a qualitative restructuring, the higher, later forms in the evolutionary series differ from the previous ones only in complexity. In this case, the laws of higher, i.e. more complex forms can be studied at the lower ones, where they appear in a less complicated, and therefore more accessible form for study. That is why researchers who take this view shift the focus of research to infancy.
Therefore, in terms of comparative psychology, research is carried out primarily on the lower, elementary forms of the reflex behavior of animals, in order to mechanically transfer the patterns obtained there to the higher forms of human behavior. First, the laws of the higher ones are directly given in the least complicated and most accessible form for research. This is the main point of this technique. The central idea that underlies the evolutionary interpretation of the genetic method is as follows: the laws of behavior at all stages of development are the same; psychological laws are immutable, "eternal" laws.
The main idea of the dialectical understanding of the genetic method, on the contrary, says: the laws of psychology are not "eternal", they are historical laws; at each stage of development they are different. This is the great idea that Marx first formulated. Marx applied it to the study of social formations. It must also be carried out in psychology. The main position - phenomena are known in their development - receives a new profound meaning: the laws themselves do not represent something immovable, unchanging; each stage of development has its own laws. Equally illegitimate is the mechanical transfer of the laws of the lower levels to the higher ones, and the laws of the higher ones to the lower ones. With the transition to a new stage of development, not only phenomena change, but along with them the laws that determine them. One and the same phenomenon can obey different laws at different stages of development (Marx showed this by the example of the law of population increase in different social formations). The task of the genetic method is to reveal the changes in the very laws that occur in the process of development.
The explanation of these changes, which are changes in the psyche as a whole, requires the identification of objective conditions of development that go beyond the limits of the psyche. The genetic study of development not only of phenomena, but also of the laws that determine them, reveals the driving forces of development and determines its conditions.
The genesis and development of the psyche can also be studied in the course of the biological development of a given genus or species. The genetic method in this case is carried out in the form of a phylogenetic method.
The study of the psyche at the previous stages of phylogenetic development serves as a means of understanding the human psyche. Animal psychology - zoopsychology - is usually studied in this way of comparative psychology.
With regard to human psychology, the genetic method faces yet another task - to reveal the ways of development of the human psyche throughout the socio-historical development of mankind: the genetic method is carried out in the form of a historical method. Exploring the mental development of mankind, tracing the ways of the formation of complex processes (for example, speech, thinking) from their primitive to their modern, developed forms, he discovers the driving forces of mental development in changing social relations.
The genesis and development of the psyche can be studied in the process of development of an individual from birth to adulthood: the genetic method in this case is carried out in the form of an ontogenetic method. Thus, the development of the child's psyche serves as a means of understanding the psyche of an adult, and at the same time the child's psyche and the paths of its development are illuminated through the laws of more developed forms of the mature psyche.
Each of the stages of mental development, both in phylogenesis and ontogenesis, must be a real, dated formation, unambiguously related to objectively determined conditions, and not an abstract construction passing through abstract dialectics into another similar abstract construction: Marx's method should not be replaced Hegel's method.
f) The use of pathology, disorders of mental life for the knowledge of the regularities of the normal psyche has rendered great services to psychology in recent decades. Some of the authoritative modern psychologists have even asserted that "psychopathology over the past 50 years has been the main factor in progress in psychology."
Each function and process can also be studied in their pathological form: perception - on hallucinations and "spiritual blindness", memory - on "amnesias", speech - on aphasias, will - on abulias, etc.
At the same time, any pathological disorder is like a natural experiment, organized by nature itself. Turning off or changing any one function within a holistically functioning psyche, it thereby makes it possible, as it were, to experimentally establish the role of this function within the whole, its connection with other functions and their interdependence. Thus, the psychopathological studies of recent years (G. Head, A. Gelb, K. Goldstein, etc.), revealing the exceptional depth of the connection between disorders of speech (aphasia), cognition (agnosia) and action (apraxia), shed bright light on the relationship of speech, cognition and action in their normal manifestations.
However, no matter how great the importance of psychopathology for psychology, one should not exaggerate it and mechanically transfer the results obtained on pathological material to the normal psyche. If one function is violated, the entire psyche of the patient is modified. This means that the relationship between the functions in the psyche of a sick person is different than in a healthy person. Therefore, it is completely wrong to identify the earlier forms of the psyche, which took place in the process of historical or individual development, with the disintegration of higher forms resulting from pathological disorders. The similarities which can thus be established between the sick and the healthy mind are often superficial and always partial. In particular, attempts to define or characterize the psychological characteristics of the ages preceding maturity by means of parallels with some pathological forms(as did especially in relation to adolescence, for example, Kretschmer).
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Definition of psychology as a scientific study of behavior and internal mental processes and the practical application of the knowledge gained. Psychology as a science. The subject of psychology. Communication of psychology with other sciences. Methods of research in psychology.
In psychology, as in other sciences, a certain set of research methods (techniques) is used to obtain facts, process and explain them.
All methods used in psychological research can be divided into four groups:
1) organizational methods; 2) empirical methods of obtaining scientific data; 3) data processing techniques; 4) interpretive methods.
Organizational Methods
Comparative method- (the "cross section" method) consists in comparing different groups of people by age, education, activity and communication. For example, two large groups people of the same age and sex (students and workers) are studied by the same empirical methods of obtaining scientific data, and the data obtained are compared with each other.
Longitudinal method(the "longitudinal cut" method) consists in multiple examinations of the same persons over a long period of time. For example, multiple examinations of students throughout the entire period of study at the university.
Complex method- a method of study in which representatives of various sciences participate in the study, which allows you to establish connections and dependencies between phenomena of various kinds, for example, the physiological, mental and social development of the individual.
empirical methods
Observation(external) - a method consisting in a deliberate, systematic, purposeful and fixed perception of external manifestations of the psyche.
Introspection(introspection) - a person's observation of his own mental phenomena.
Experimental Methods
Experiment differs from observation by active intervention in the situation on the part of the researcher, who systematically manipulates some factors and registers the corresponding changes in the state and behavior of the subject.
Laboratory experiment It is carried out in artificial conditions, as a rule, with the use of special equipment, with strict control of all influencing factors.
natural experiment- psychological experiment included in the activity or communication unnoticed by the subject.
Formative (training) experiment - a method of research and formation of a mental process, state or quality of a person.
Psychodiagnostic methods
Test- a system of tasks that measure the level of development of a certain quality (property) of a person.
Achievement Tests- one of the methods of psychodiagnostics, which allows to identify the degree of possession of the subject of specific knowledge, skills, abilities.
Intelligence Tests- a method of psychodiagnostics to identify the mental potential of the individual.
Creativity tests- a set of methods for studying and evaluating creative abilities.
personality tests- a method of psychodiagnostics for measuring various aspects of an individual's personality.
Questionnaire- a methodological tool for obtaining primary socio-psychological information based on verbal (verbal) communication, representing a questionnaire for obtaining answers to a pre-compiled system of questions.
Sociometry- a method of psychological research of interpersonal relations in a group in order to determine the structure of relationships and psychological compatibility.
Interview- a method of social psychology, which consists in collecting information obtained in the form of answers to the questions posed, as a rule, pre-formulated.
Conversation- a method that provides for the direct or indirect receipt of psychological information through verbal communication.
The effective application of the empirical method depends on the extent to which it valid(corresponds to what it was originally intended to receive and evaluate) and reliable(allows you to get the same results with repeated and repeated use).
FEEL
Feel is a reflection of specific, individual properties, qualities, aspects of objects and phenomena of material reality that affect the senses at a given moment.
A person receives all information about the world around him only through a variety of sensations.
A person who is not able to see is unlikely to be able to imagine what light and color are in the way that a sighted person is able to imagine and feel. A deaf person is unable to imagine and perceive the sounds of music and the subtle nuances of the human voice in the same way that a well-hearing person can.
Thus, when they say that sensations are the main source of human knowledge, this means that, without sensations, a person would not have consciousness either (in it, various sensations are mainly represented).
The information reception structure includes the following steps:
R OCH N GM OSH CV EP OP M OS VN
An irritant (auditory, visual) R affects the sense organs (SP), resulting in nerve impulses (NI) that enter the brain (GM) through the nerve pathways, are processed there and separate sensations (OS) are formed, based on which a holistic image of perception (CV) of an object is formed, which is compared with memory standards (EP), as a result of which the object is identified (OP), and then, with a mental comparison of current information and previous experience, through mental activity (M) comprehension occurs ( OS), understanding of information. Attention (AT) should be directed to the reception and understanding of information.
Numerous observations have shown that impaired information flow in early childhood, associated with deafness and blindness, causes severe delays in mental development.
For the emergence of sensations, it is necessary first of all to have objects and phenomena of the real world affecting the sense organs, which in this case are called stimuli. The effect of stimuli on the sense organs is called irritation. In the nervous tissue, the process of irritation causes excitation. System excitation nerve cells(the most perfect in its organization) with the obligatory participation of the cells of the cerebral cortex and gives a sensation.
There are five main types of human sensations- these are visual, auditory, tactile, muscular, olfactory and gustatory, distinguished by Aristotle.
tactile are called sensations, diverse in their quality, obtained directly from the surface of the skin. These include sensations of touch, pressure, heat, cold, movement on the surface of the skin, and a number of others. Muscular- These are specific sensations that occur when the muscles are tensed or relaxed. Olfactory are the sensations we usually call smells.
Now there are much more types of sensations. So, in the composition of touch, along with tactile sensations (touch), there is an independent type of sensation - temperature. Intermediate between tactile and auditory sensations is occupied by vibrational sensations. Sensations of acceleration and balance are singled out as a separate type of sensations. Pain sensations are common to different analyzers, signaling the destructive power of the stimulus.
Feeling properties.
Different types of sensations are characterized not only by specificity, but also by properties common to them. These properties include: quality, intensity, duration and spatial localization.
Quality- this is the main feature of this sensation, which distinguishes it from other types of sensations and varies within this type of sensation. The qualitative variety of sensations reflects the infinite variety of forms of motion of matter.
Intensity sensation is its quantitative characteristic and is determined by the strength of the acting stimulus and the functional state of the receptor.
Duration sensation is its temporal characteristic. It is also determined by the functional state of the sense organ, but mainly by the duration of the stimulus and its intensity. When an irritant is exposed to a sensory organ, sensation does not occur immediately, but after some time - the so-called latent (hidden) period of sensation. The latent period of various types of sensations is not the same: for example, for tactile sensations it is 130 ms, for pain - 370, and for taste - only 50 ms.
Spatial localization of the stimulus. The analysis carried out by spatial receptors gives us information about the localization of the stimulus in space. Contact sensations are related to the part of the body that is affected by the stimulus.
PERCEPTIONS
When we talked about sensations, we saw that their content does not go beyond the elementary forms of reflection. However, the real processes of reflection of the external world go far beyond the most elementary forms. A person does not live in a world of isolated light or color spots, sounds or touches, he lives in a world of things, objects and forms, in a world of complex situations, i.e. no matter what a person perceives, he invariably deals not with individual sensations, but with whole images. The reflection of these images goes beyond isolated sensations, relying on the joint work of the senses, the synthesis of individual sensations into complex complex systems. This synthesis can proceed both within one modality (when looking at a picture, we combine individual visual impressions into a whole image), and within several modalities (perceiving an orange, we actually combine visual, tactile, taste impressions, add our knowledge of him). Only as a result of such a combination, isolated sensations turn into a holistic perception, move from the reflection of individual features to the reflection of entire objects or situations.
When perceiving familiar objects (a glass, a table), they are recognized very quickly - it is enough for a person to combine two or three perceived signs in order to come to the desired decision. When perceiving new or unfamiliar objects, their recognition is much more difficult and proceeds in much more developed forms. The complete perception of such objects arises as a result of complex analytical and synthetic work, highlighting some essential features, inhibiting others, insignificant and combining the perceived details into one meaningful whole.
Reception and processing by a person of information received through the senses ends with the appearance of images of objects and phenomena. The process of forming these images is called perception(sometimes the term is also used) "perception", "perceptual process").
Perception- this is the process of cognition of integral, complex things and phenomena that exist in the world and are represented in the human mind in the form of images. The result of perception as a process is an image, that is, a holistic, stable system of sensations associated with a particular object or phenomenon.
Perception called the mental process of reflecting objects and phenomena of reality in the aggregate of their various properties and parts with their direct impact on the senses. Perception is a reflection of a complex stimulus.
If, as a result of sensation, a person gains knowledge about individual properties, qualities of objects (something hot burned, something bright flashed ahead, etc.), then perception gives a holistic image of an object or phenomena. It presupposes the presence of various sensations and flows along with sensations, but cannot be reduced to their sum. Perception depends on certain relationships between sensations, the relationship of which, in turn, depends on the connections and relationships between qualities and properties, various parts that make up an object or phenomenon.
Modern views on the process of perception have their origins in two theories. One of them is known as gestalt (image) theory.
Adherents of this concept believed that the nervous system of animals and humans perceives not separate external stimuli, but their complexes: for example, the shape, color and movement of an object are perceived as a whole, and not separately. Contrary to this theory behaviorists argued that only elementary (unimodal) sensory functions really exist, and attributed the ability to synthesize only to the brain. modern science tries to reconcile these two extreme theories. It is assumed that perception is initially quite complex, but the "integrity of the image" is still a product of the synthesizing activity of the cerebral cortex. In principle, we can talk about the gradual convergence of these approaches.
Of all types of perception that a person has, the main role in his life is played by visual and auditory perception. There is such a type of visual perception as the perception of space. The perception of movement and time, in which different sense organs take part, is considered separately.
Types of perception distinguish: the perception of objects, time, the perception of relationships, movements, space, the perception of a person.
Motion We are able to perceive the objects surrounding us due to the fact that the movement usually occurs against some background, this allows the retina of the eye to consistently reproduce the ongoing changes in the position of moving bodies in relation to those elements in front of which or behind which the object moves. Interestingly, in the dark, a still luminous point seems to be moving ( autokinetic effect).
The perception of visible movement is determined by data on the spatial position of objects, that is, it is associated with visual perception of the degree of remoteness of an object and an assessment of the direction in which this or that object is located.
Movement perception- this is a reflection in time of changes in the position of objects or the observer himself in space. Observing the movement, first of all perceive it:
1) character (flexion, extension, repulsion, pull-up, etc.);
2) shape (rectilinear, curvilinear, circular, arcuate, etc.);
3) amplitude (range) - small, large;
5) speed (fast or slow; with cyclic movements - fast or slow pace);
6) duration (multiple, long);
7) acceleration (uniform, accelerating, decelerating, smooth, intermittent).
The perception of movements is determined by the interaction of various analyzers: visual, motor, vestibular, auditory, etc.
Perception of space- this is the perception of the shape, size, volume and objects, the distance between them, their relative position, remoteness and the direction in which they are located.
The perception of space is based on the perception of the size and shape of objects through the synthesis of visual, muscular and tactile sensations, as well as on the perception of the volume and distance of objects, which is provided by binocular vision.
Perceptions can be wrong or distorted - illusions.
IV. visual illusions- this is an incorrect or distorted perception of the size, shape and remoteness of objects. There are many types of visual illusions. Some of them are:
but) re-evaluation of vertical lines. Of two lines of the same size, the vertical one is always visually perceived as much larger than the horizontal one.
b) misperception of the size of an object(object). For example, a tall person next to a short one seems taller than he really is; circles of the same diameter appear different depending on whether they are surrounded by larger or smaller objects in relation to them; identical objects appear to be of different sizes if they are perceived as being at a certain distance from each other, while an object located closer seems smaller, and a distant object larger than its actual size.
These illusions are explained by the law of perception, according to which the size of objects is estimated not by the actual size of their images on the retina, but in accordance with an estimate of the distance at which these objects are located.
Perception of time is a reflection of the objective duration, speed and sequence of the phenomena of reality. There is no special, independent time analyzer. Time perception is based on the rhythmic change of excitation and inhibition. Its dynamics in the nervous system constitutes the physiological basis for the perception of time. A certain state of nerve cells becomes a time signal, on the basis of which conditioned reflexes for time are developed in humans and animals.
Perception of a sequence of phenomena relies on a clear dismemberment and objectively existing change of some phenomena by others and is associated with ideas about the present, past and future, reflecting objective, periodically repeating processes in nature. Once perceived, the phenomenon will remain in memory in the form of a representation of it. Its repeated perception causes in our memory the idea of the former, which is realized as the past.
Perception of the duration of phenomena. It has been proven that a person can accurately perceive short periods of time no more than 0.75 s through special training in distinguishing micro-intervals of time. If an event occurs very slowly, the perception of its duration is based on indicators that allow you to divide time into certain segments.
Perception of pace- this is a reflection of the speed with which individual stimuli of a process taking place in time replace each other (for example, the alternation of sounds).
Rhythm perception- this is a reflection of the uniform alternation of stimuli, their regularity when objects and phenomena of objective reality act on our senses.
Perception properties:
1. Integrity, i.e. perception is always a holistic image of an object. This is an innate property. However, the ability of a holistic visual perception of objects is not congenital, this is evidenced by data on the perception of people who became blind in infancy and who regained their sight in adulthood. In the first days after the operation, they do not see the world of objects, but only vague outlines, spots of various brightness and size, i.e. there were single sensations, but there was no perception, they did not see integral objects. Gradually, over several weeks, these people develop visual perception, but it remained limited to what they had previously learned through touch. Thus, perception is formed in the process of practice, i.e. perception is a system of perceptual actions that must be mastered.
2. Constancy perception - due to constancy, we perceive the surrounding objects as relatively constant in shape, color, size, etc. The source of the constancy of perception is the active actions of the perceptual system (the system of analyzers that provide the act of perception). Multiple perception of the same objects under different conditions makes it possible to single out a relatively constant invariant structure of the perceived object. Constancy of perception is not an innate property, but an acquisition. Violation of perceptual constancy occurs when a person enters an unfamiliar situation, for example, when people look from the upper floors high-rise building down, then cars, pedestrians seem small to them; at the same time, builders who work constantly at height report that they can see objects below without distorting their size.
3. Structure perceptions – perception is not a simple sum of sensations. We perceive a generalized structure actually abstracted from these sensations. For example, when listening to music, we perceive not individual sounds, but a melody, and we recognize it if it is performed by an orchestra, or one piano, or a human voice, although individual sound sensations are different.
4. Meaningfulness perception - perception is closely connected with thinking, with understanding the essence of objects.
5. Selectivity perception - is manifested in the preferential selection of some objects in comparison with others.
objectivity perception - the ability of a person to reflect the surrounding reality as the impact of its specific objects belonging to a certain class of phenomena. At the same time, the brain clearly distinguishes between the object, the background and the contour of their perception.
Apperception- the dependence of perception on the previous experience of a person. So, in the perception of the same object by different people there are differences depending on the task, attitude, mental state of each of them. Apperception gives the active nature of the perception of the individual. Perceiving objects, a person expresses his attitude towards them.
A Swiss psychologist has found that even meaningless inkblots are always perceived as something meaningful (a dog, a cloud, a lake), and only some mental patients tend to perceive random inkblots as such. Those. perception proceeds as a dynamic process of searching for an answer to the question: “what is it?”.
ATTENTION
Attention is a mental cognitive process.
Attention- this is the orientation and concentration of consciousness on a certain object (phenomenon), which provides its especially clear reflection (suggesting an increase in the level of sensory, intellectual or motor activity).
The object that we highlight is called the object of attention, and the rest of the objects from which we are distracted are called the background of attention.
According to Pavlov, in the state of wakefulness in the cortex of the hemispheres, the optimal focus of excitation. In general, there are many foci, but one is optimal. And the more attention is focused, the larger this focus. This is called the law of negative induction - increased irritation of one group of cells at the expense of others. Thus, when we focus, we make the optimal focus even more excited, and inhibition occurs in other areas, that is, the person is distracted from external stimuli (they are extinguished). By the way, this optimal focus dynamically moves, thereby providing variable attention.
According to Ukhtinsky, the optimal focus of excitation is the dominant (that is, with increased nervous excitability (dominant) dominating over the rest of the cortex (foci). As a result, consciousness is concentrated on certain objects and phenomena).
Types of attention
The person has several various types attention: natural and social attention, involuntary voluntary and post-voluntary attention, immediate and mediated attention.
natural they call such attention of a person that is given to him from birth, from nature, which begins to function quite early in ontogenesis, improves as the brain matures and practically does not depend on the experience acquired by a person, on training and education. It has been established that at the end of the first month of life, the child begins to pay attention to new stimuli. This indicates that his natural attention was included in the work.
Social or socially conditioned is also called attention, which the child does not have from birth and which he acquires in the process of life. Socially determined is called, for example, attention to objects and phenomena related to human life in society, that is, to objects and phenomena that represent human culture. This is attention to books, to music, to other works of art, to machines made by human hands, to events taking place in society.
involuntary- this is attention that turns on, functions, switches from object to object and turns off automatically, without the participation of the consciousness and will of the person. With all his desire, a person is not able to control this attention. An example of involuntary attention is an involuntary response to everything unusual that happens around. A person's attention can be triggered by an unexpected sound, an unusual object or phenomenon that he accidentally saw, a bright flash of light, and much more. This kind of attention is not influenced by training and upbringing and, like natural attention, is innate.
Arbitrary- this attention, which, on the contrary, is regulated by the will of a person, is under his conscious control. In this case, in order to turn your attention to something and keep it for a certain time on given object, a person is forced to make an effort. For example, a person may be tired, but he needs to continue doing some business, to bring it to the end, and therefore he has to keep his attention on this matter by an effort of will.
Voluntary and involuntary attention seem to compete with each other: voluntary attention is distracted by involuntary attention, and involuntary attention, for its part, prevents the emergence of voluntary attention.
Sometimes it happens that, having at first shown voluntary attention to something and forcing himself to do this business without expressed interest in it, a person eventually becomes interested in what he had to do and further studies against the background of the interest that has arisen in the corresponding business proceed without special efforts. In this case, we are talking about the fact that a person has post-voluntary attention.
According to its characteristics post-voluntary attention resembles involuntary attention, but always occurs only after some time after the establishment of voluntary attention to some business or object.
direct call such attention, which is attracted and retained on some object by this object itself. In this case, between the object that attracts attention to itself and the process of attention itself, there is nothing extraneous that would participate in its regulation. Note that direct attention, as well as the types of attention we have already considered - natural and involuntary - a person has from the moment of his birth.
Sometimes the object that needs to be paid attention to, for example, to remember it, to think about it, is physically absent at the moment, and it is impossible to perceive it directly with the help of the senses. In this case, the person turns to indirect attention.
mediated called attention, in which all its processes are controlled with the help of various kinds of additional, special means. People invented these means a long time ago, and gradually, in the course of the history of the development of human culture, these means themselves developed and improved.
One of the simplest means of controlling attention is gestures, head movements towards the object that needs to be paid attention to.