In the article the attention is paid to the necessity of forming social activities of the student youth as an important goal of social education. The definition of the notion «social activity» is given, the types of social activity are considered. The authors represented the results of the experimental pedagogical investigation on the formation of the social activity and also there were revealed peculiarities of forming social activity of the student youth in the activity of the student social associations. The object of the research was the student youth of Astana - city, particularly, the students of pedagogical specialties of the Eurasian Humanities Institute. Diagnosis at the ascertaining stage of the experiment shows a low level of the social activity of the students of the experimental and control groups. The programme on the formation of social activity of the students of the experimental group was realized at the formative stage of the experiment in the process of the activity of the student associations. The effectiveness of the programme is confirmed by the dynamics of the results of all three stages of the experimental-pedagogical work – ascertaining, formative and control.
Formation of social activity of the young generation of our country is becoming an important problem of our contemporary life, a decisive factor of the progressive social development. Today even under the most favorable conditions of life the youth are often inactive, not interested in independent activity and are able only to acquire the established experience making no efforts for transforming the surrounding environment.
If we speak about the youth we mean that they are the most socially active part of the population who represent the most perspective group of the citizens capable to realize the key directions of the society development.
In the Message of the President of the country N.A. Nazarbayev to the people of Kazakhstan «Kazakh- stan-2050» the role of the youth in the development of the state is not once emphasized: «I rely on you, a new generation of the Kazakhstani people. You must become the stimulus of a New course. You are the embodiment of all our hopes for the future. Everything that we are doing now is for you. The further way of the country is to be determined by you [1].
The student years are an important stage in the formation and development of the significant part of the youth. It is the student youth that have a peculiar role as far as the intellectual elite who are able to have a decisive influence on all the spheres of the society life is formed in higher educational establishments.
The term «studentship» serves to mean «not only the specific social group, the definite social position, the role and status but also the specific phase of social activity» [2; 56]. «The student age, as L.Ya. Rubin marks, is the most important in the formation of a person, as an active member of the society acquiring the complex of social functions of an adult person… This intermediate stage of social formation, the low boundary of which is the moment of receiving the secondary education and the upper one - mastering professions, initiation in the sphere of labor» [3; 57].
Modern life sets before the student youth the tasks which need active involvement in social relations, in the interrelation with the people and social institutions in the economic, political and spiritual spheres. The youth initiative, striving to the independent participation in the life of the society and the state, to the satisfaction and realization of different social needs and interests are the qualities of leadership, good will and other forms of social activity.
Analysis of scientific literature allowed us to confirm the idea that the social activity is considered as an integrative personal quality which includes two aspects: a social aspect – accumulation of social knowledge, social skills, experience of the socially significant activity; a personal aspect that is reflected in the needs, interests, direction (motives), emotionally – precious experience, reflection, in the responsible, positive attitude to social reality. A personality is formed in the social activity directed to different spheres of socially- significant activities.
Let us consider the basic types of social activity of the student youth:
- Cognitive activity is directed to the acquisition of a definite set of knowledge and skills, necessary for achieving the goals set by the personality and is realized either in the educational process or in the independent activity of the individual directed to receiving knowledge and skills.
- The source of the cognitive activity is in knowledge, self-realization, acknowledgement in society, material well-being, etc. For determining the level of the cognitive activity of the students it is necessary to clear out the importance, independence and awareness of this type of activity by them. For this the objective indicators characterizing the fact of activity for the individual, stipulation by one's own needs are expressed in relation to the activity.
- The objective indicators of the cognitive activity of the student youth are as follows: attendance of the studies; the level of progress; time expenditures on the cognitive activity; reading of the educational and scientific literature; attendance of libraries, internet resources of the educational direction, watching cognitive television programmes; the degree of independence of carrying out different types of works, etc.
The subjective indicators are as follows: the motive of entering the higher educational establishment; the degree of getting interested; evaluation of the possibility to use the received knowledge and skills; evaluation of the degree of the influence of the cognitive activity on achieving the life goals; plans to continue education, etc.
Taking into account the chosen indicators the degree of the cognitive activity includes the following types:
- high level of the cognitive activity – knowledge and skills of their acquisition are the basic aim. The most expressive demand of a personality is the demand in knowledge, a high level of all objective indicators;
- medium level of the cognitive activity – cognition is a means of achieving other goals, receiving of the knowledge is not the first consideration. A student refers to the cognitive activity positively, understands its importance for achieving life goals; progress is good; a significant part of the time is devoted to the studies; he/she is aware of the possibility and the sphere of using the received knowledge; there are plans for continuing education (receiving the second higher education, studying for the Master degree programme, etc.);
- low level of the cognitive activity – knowledge is not the basic value, only the necessity of its receiving is important. The document about education is more important. A student studies in order to pass examinations. He/she is rarely interested in the studied subjects and has a vague imagination where to employ the received knowledge.
The objective indicators of the social-political activity are as follows: participation in social and political associations (political parties, youthful movements, student communities and others); participation in elections; implementation of socially useful activity; being initiative in social activity; time expenditures on social-political activity, etc.
The subjective indicators are as follows: the attitude to the social-political activity; awareness of the importance of one's own social-political activity, etc.
The degree of social-political activity may be characterized as follows:
- high level of social-political activity – a student deals with the social useful activity regularly and is a member of social associations; a student takes an active part in the work of the meetings; a student positively refers to the social-political activity and is aware of its importance; a student shares the goals of the associations in which he/she takes part; a student often takes the initiative and devotes a lot of time to the socialpolitical activity;
- medium and low levels of social-political activity (depending on the degree of the criteria) – participation of a student in the socially useful activity is not systematic; a student attends the meetings of social associations quite rarely only in case of necessity; a student is rarely initiative and tries to achieve his/her own goals different from the group mates.
Labor activity may be directed either to obtaining the definite experience in the professional sphere, the skills directed to the perspective of the further career growth or to receiving a salary in spite of the type of activity and further goals. Speaking about the labor activity we should take into account the degree of importance of the process and results of labor for the individual. The activity directed exclusively to getting profits will not witness about a person interested in the process of labor and may be conditioned by external circumstances and may not have internal motivation. The objective indicators of the labor activity are as follows: productivity of labor; using the working time; the state of the labor discipline; the quality of the work; mastering the advanced methods of labor; the level of qualification and professional skills; participation in labor competitions, etc.
The subjective indicators are as follows: satisfaction with the fulfilled work; motives of the labor activity; the attitude to the activity of the collective and some parts of it; the attitude to the state of the degree of the organization and normalization of labor and introduction of the advanced forms of its organization; the attitude to the labor payment, the degree of organizing labor competitions, etc.; the attitude to the improvement of qualification and the level of education, etc. The degrees of labor activity are characterized as follows:
- high level of the labor activity – the process of labor itself is important including an interesting creative job (self-realization in labor). The attitude to labor is positive; work is done in full accompanied with taking the initiative in labor;
- medium level of labor activity – getting interested in the labor activity but the results of labor are of more importance. The objective indicators may be the same as under a high level of labor activity.
- low level of labor activity – the results of labor are the most important depending on the material reward. The students are quite indifferent to labor; only from time to time they work in full measure of forces, but without initiative.
The main criterion of the effectiveness of managing the formation of the student youth social activity is a high level of all activity types and a high degree of coherence of the interests with the interests of other social subjects [4; 35].
The students' social activity is an obligatory condition of their training as future specialists. It is stipulated by the fact that after the graduation from the educational institution they will implement technical, organizational servicing, production facing different problems. They receive knowledge in the process of the studies, in the course of the educational and production practices. An important element of the students' social activity is their participation in the social life of the educational institution, the city, the oblast. It is also characteristic of the communication with the group mates and the teachers.
To solve such tasks a big role is played by the student social associations (SSA), which alongside the social experience give the young people an opportunity to be independent, conscientious, active; they create conditions for accumulation and improvement of the communication experience and collective cooperation. The students' social associations, being one of not many youth social institutions, are able to improve the effectiveness of the process of the formation of social activity significantly giving the student youth, first of all, an opportunity to get realized in the process of the social-constructive activity.
Creation of the youth social associations became for the youth the possibility to attract attention to their interests and problems, to provide their leisure time and employment independently. It is the creation and support of the youth organizations and movements that will allow revealing valuable orientations of the youth, to use lively abilities, entrepreneurship, non-standard approaches to the solution either of their problems or building of the future of the whole society.
For forming the students' social activity the activity of the student social associations is widely used.
The activity of the student youth in SSA is organized on the principle of self-government which opens new, non-standard educational forms, allows revealing activity, initiative, civil position, intellectual abilities, helps to clear out the existing social order, to understand the social and civil responsibility [5; 72].
Working at the preparation and realization of the idea of the activity of the new SSA, expansion of the activity of the present SSA is a great possibility to unite the collective. In the course of the business interaction the members of the organization will get to know each other better, the natural environment will be created where each student will show his/her abilities and responsibilities. The members of the SSA develop different social projects that demand serious preparation which gives necessary knowledge and skills in the sphere of the managerial and organizational activity, strengthening of social skills obtained during the process of training and interacting with peers, supervisors, leaders.
For realizing the programme on the formation of social activity of the student youth during the 2015/16, 2016/17 academic years we conducted the experimental-pedagogical work which was implemented in Astana city, particularly in the Eurasian Humanities Institute. The work was conducted during 2 years and included ascertaining, forming and control stages.
For participating in the research there were chosen 67 students of pedagogical specialties. There were formed control and experimental groups. The age of the students participating in the experiment is 18-19 years old; distribution according to the sex is as follows: boys -15 %, girls – 85 %; as for the nationality structure, the majority are the representatives of the Kazakh and Russian nationalities.
At the ascertaining stage there was used the developed complex of diagnostic methods for defining the degree of the formation of social activity of a student's personality; there were defined the degrees of theformation of social activity of a student's personality; there were formed the control and experimental groups with equal initial data, there was made the analysis of the data of the ascertaining stage of the experiment
With the help of questionnaires, polls, observation and conversations there were revealed qualitative characteristics of social activity: initiative, execution, consciousness, responsibility in the activity of the student social associations in relation to the whole activity.
At the beginning of the experiment we studied the notion «social activity» for the purpose of making the analysis among the students of the control and experimental groups with the help of the content analysis. It should be noted that the most often notional word-combinations of the experimental and control groups are: «participation in the Institute life» – 33 %, «participation in the life of society» – 18 %, «activity in eve- rything» – 9 %, «interesting days of a student» – 3 %, «belonging to different organizations» – 6 %, «partici- pation in different events» – 28 %, «desire to be involved in the social activity» – 3 %.
This proves that as a whole the students of the experimental and control groups understand the essence of social activity.
According to the results of the questionnaire on revealing the level of social activity of the student youth we can ascertain that the level of social activity in the experimental and control groups is practically the same. In the experimental group 25 % of the students have a high level of social activity that is 2 % more than in the control group, the medium level of social activity in the control group makes up 38 % that is 4 % higher than the medium level of the experimental group, a low level of the control and experimental groups is the same.
The data of the conducted questionnaire demonstrate practically the same level of knowledge in the experimental and control groups. If in the experimental group a high level of knowledge makes up 30 % and this is 10 % higher than in the control group, then a medium level in the control group makes up 40 % and this is 10 % higher than in the experimental group. A low level in both groups makes up 35 %.
Thus, the ascertaining stage of our experimental research was directed to the study of the level of social activity of the youth. The received data show that most of the EAGI students of pedagogical specialties have low and medium levels of social activity. We can mark insignificant activity of a small group of students.
This allows making a conclusion that the students participating in the experiment mainly reveal activity of reproduction, their independence in the activity is not high, they are disciplinary, executive but not initiative. The students are aware of their own participation in the socially-significant activity as the way of getting involved in the life of the educational institution. The majority of the students are selfish, they are all individuals, and their activity is directed to obtaining some advantages personally for themselves.
This confirms our supposition that it is necessary to involve the student youth in the activity of the SSA as the form and methods of the governmental influence on the formation of social activity.
And for this we had to clear out which social associations the students joined: we held questioning among the students of the experimental and control groups. On the results of the questioning it was stated that the participants of the experimental group are the members of the chess club, dancing collective «Шат- тык», and also the Youth Debate club «Парасат» (the L.N. Gumilyov ENU). The students of the control group take part in the dancing collective «Шаттык» and the vocal studio. And such participation in both of the experimental and control groups is mainly of elemental and episodic character.
At the stage of the forming experiment we implemented the purposeful work on the formation of the students' social activity. In the course of the experimental work in order to acquire the essence of the notion of social activity there was delivered a special course in the experimental group, there was realized the programme on the formation of social activity in the activity of the student social associations. The programme suggested using the interactive technologies of forming social activity of the personality of a young person in the activity of the SSA; creation of the conditions for improving the degree of the formation of social activity as the integrative quality of a personality as the bearer of democratic and humanistic relations in the society; development of the students' reflection and self-regulation, the feeling of self-dignity, responsibility, tolerance, formation of socially active life position. And we oriented the activity of the associations for creating conditions for the formation and realization of the youth social activity, development of the skills of the social and political participation, creative independent thinking, realization of the priority of common human values in the process of organizing and implementing of different socially-directed creative projects.
After having completed the special course, the repeated questionnaire for the students on revealing the level of knowledge of the students of the experimental group allowed making a conclusion that the level of the students' knowledge in the experimental group became higher. At the forming stage a high level increased by 20 %, a medium level – by 15 %, a low level decreased by 30 %. The students' answers witness about full understanding of the essence of social activity.
In the control group the level of knowledge also increased, but not so significantly. A high level increased by 5 %, a medium level – by 10 %, a low level decreased by 10 %.
During the experimental-pedagogical work the students of the experimental group took part in different republican, city and Institute events. It should be noted that the percentage of participation of the student youth in the activity of the social associations increased. Thus, for example, having joined the volunteer organization the students of the experimental group took part in organizing and holding the events in the Akkol Zhalymbet children's houses. The students-volunteers of the student club «Asylzhurek», implemented the work with the students of limited possibilities and their curators. The members of the club carried out their activity not only at the Institute but also in the kindergarten «Balazhan» where they had an opportunity to employ not only the methods of the psychological-pedagogical research but also to learn the new aspects of the future profession of a pedagogue-psychologist. There was also implemented the work in the National Guards, where the Asylzhurek members helped the young soldiers to get adapted to the conditions of the military service. Trainings were held for the children with limited possibilities at school-gymnasium № 65. The students of the specialty «Foreign language: two foreign languages» worked as home tutors with the children from the guardian families.
Effectiveness of the suggested programmes is proved by the results of diagnosis. Participating in planning, preparation, conducting collective work, acquiring the experience of the organizational work the students became more responsible and active. By the end of the academic year the students demonstrated not only the knowledge about social activity but they were ready to get involved in different events.
The intermediate analysis allowed to state that the implemented experimental work enabled to increase the level of social activity of the student youth.
In conclusion we made control analysis of the experiment. A high level of social activity in the experimental group became higher than at the forming stage – by 10 %, a medium level – by 5 %, a low level decreased by 15 %.
In the control group, in comparison with the experimental one, the changes are insignificant. A high level at the control stage increased by 2 %, a medium level remained the same and a low level decreased only by 3 %.
One of the results of the experimental work became 100 % - participation of the students of the experimental group in the elections of the deputies to the Majilis of the Parliament and Maslihats of all the levels.
At the end of the experiment we held another questionnaire to clear out the participation of the students in the activity of social associations. Among them there were : the theatrical circle, the English speaking club, the vocal studio, the studio of folk dances, the debate club «EAGI Victoria», the volunteer organization, the studio of modern dances, scientific circles: «Туран», «Жасғалым», the sections on volleyball, basketball, the chess club. Among other organizations (higher educational establishments, non-governmental organizations, the youth wings of political parties, the organizations of the additional education, etc.) the students called: МК «ЖасОтан» НДП«НұрОтан», «Жасыл Ел», the youth organization «Жастар», the International language centre «InterPressIH», the Academy of business «Iскер»,the centre «Daryn».
Thus, the results of the control analysis demonstrate that the data of the experimental group differ much from the data of the control group. The students' answers witness about the understanding of the essence of social activity and the necessity of the formation of the purposeful character of the process. The implemented experimental-pedagogical work proved the effectiveness of the activity of the student social associations in forming social activity of the student youth.
References
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