FORMATION OF EXPERIMENTAL COMPETENCE OF FUTURE CHEMISTS IN THE PROCESS OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING IN AN INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of Chemistry students’ experimental competence formation in professional training at higher educational institutions. Higher Educational Standards and educational training programs are analyzed in order to establish the experiment importance in chemists’ professional training. The definition of experimental notion of future chemists is formulated based on the synthesis of existing interpretations. Taking into consideration the significant role of the experiment in the professional chemist’s activity and the analysis of literary sources, the system of knowledge, abilities, skills and motives necessary for chemists to perform their professional duties is characterized. To conduct a pedagogical experiment to determine the effectiveness of the formation of experimental competence of future chemists, its theoretical principles and program are developed. In the empirical study, the levels of the experimental competence of future chemists (low, medium, sufficient, high) on the basis of selected components (motivational, cognitive, operational, activity) in accordance with selected criteria and corresponding indicators were determined. To conduct a pedagogical experiment to determine the effectiveness of the formation of experimental competence of future chemists, its theoretical principles and program are developed. According to the initial assessment of the respondents’ competence it has been found that most of them have an average level of its maturity. In order to improve it, there has been conducted an experiment, which involved introducing the following stages of future chemists’ experimental competence formation in the process of training: focus on mastering the experimental competence; acquisition of theoretical chemical knowledge; mastering practical skills; gaining professional experience of the experimental competence application. The effectiveness of forming the experimental competence of future chemists according to the identified components has been proved by statistically significant positive changes. The reliability of the obtained results has been proved by means of Student’s t-test.