The role of research activities in the formation of occupation-specific personality traits of pedagogical linguists

This article focuses on research activities as conditioning formation of occupation-specific personality traits with Pedagogical Linguistics students. The authors provide a definition of occupation-specific traits of pedagogical linguists, consider their make-up as well as the factors underlying their development, with research activities regarded as the centerpiece. The research in question that students do under guidance of university professors acting as their advisers requires skills and competences of dealing with scientific literature, analyzing facts and phenomena, own research, publishing findings and speaking at scientific conferences. Conducting research implies interviewing children, teachers, parents, staff, which is a test to the researchers' communication skills and their ability to follow professional code of conduct. The authors underscore that the value of research activities is due to them being conducive to the students' creative thinking, professional competence and enhanced quality of their training as would-be pedagogical linguists. The inter-disciplinary Research Laboratory "LUNN of SCIENCE" has carried out a three-phase experiment seeking to prepare students for their own research activities. Phase One - Basic included questioning the total of 97 students in order to find out how well they were prepared for conducting own research, and testing with a view to reveal their set of values and aspirations via D. Leontyev's method. Phase Two - Formation embraced validation of a pre-research preparatory program. The program consisted of Obtaining and Handling Research-Relevant Information course, introducing the students to fundamentals of research activities, and Self-Confidence and Public Speaking Psychology training course, developing students' communication skills and preparing them for speaking in public. 35 students of the School of English at the Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod joined the program. Phase Three was focused on assessing the program's efficiency. The findings obtained confirm that Pedagogical Linguistics students involved in research activities are likely to better develop their occupation-specific personality traits.

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