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D. S.
Yergaliyeva, T. M.
Yergaliyev
Akhmet Baitursynov Kostanai
State University, Kostanai, Kazakhstan
Intellectual
contest as a way to motivate students’ cognitive activities
As the state needs highly
qualified specialists, which is impossible without quality knowledge of
students, the interest in proper
motivation of students and schoolchildren in the process of studies has been
constantly increasing. The authors believe intellectual contests to be one of
the ways of solving the problem mentioned. We
see the root of negligence and lack of responsibility of students
concerning their studies in their wrong attitude to the process of knowledge
obtaining and education. Chinese students are known to be ones of the most
diligent in the world [1], while South Korean schoolchildren start the process
of studying up to enter higher school institutions as early as primary school
[2]. But the situation is quite different among Kazakhstani
students, as it is in many other countries. Due to various reasons students do not see the correlation between
quality education and life success. So
the students striving to good marks and obtaining knowledge more often than not
are misunderstood by the majority of co-students and enter the category of
outcasts in their academic groups. Consequently there appeared a so called
popular trend of being irresponsible students but active clubbers. We dare to
reasonably suppose that advertising the image of an intellectual
student, having gained success in life due to his intellectual abilities, is
able to change the existing negative tendencies. To achieve this it is
necessary to arrange yearly intellectual contests with a number of preliminary
selective tours.
Fortunately, we can give a good example of such an
event. So in 2012 – 2013 Kostanai state university hosted “2013 KSU
Intellectual Contest”. Each group of students was represented by a single
participant. Besides, all
willing students of KSU were welcome.
All the participants of the first selective tour were to register not less than two weeks ahead of the testing. They were to
supply personal data, such as name, surname, patronymic, department, specialty,
e-mail and telephone number. There were
three tours in the Contest. The first
tour was held in the form of Multi-disciplinary testing, covering some basics
of Sciences and Arts and containing some general knowledge topics in Russian,
Kazakh and English. Each set of questions contained 40 multiple choice items
with 4 variants of possible answers. The time span for the task completion was
1 hour (60 minutes). The students of each faculty scoring the highest number of
points (3 top ones) passed on to the next tour. The participants scoring the
equal number of points shared the first, second and third place, thus there
were three or more representatives of each faculty in the second tour. During
the second tour the participants had to show their knowledge of a state and a
foreign language and the ability of critical thinking. As the result of this
tour only one representative of each faculty entered the finals. Thus there were seven participants equaling
the number of faculties. The finals were held in the form of an intellectual game. The game was
adequately equipped with special devices flashing up when pressed, which
indicated the person ready to answer first.
All disputable questions were considered by the grand jury including
CEOs of other Higher Education Institutions of Kostanai and Methodical
Department of KSU. The game included four stages, during which the participants
showed their general knowledge, abilities of critical and quick thinking. The tasks were taken from
different fields: Mathematics, Biology,
Information Science, History, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Arts, Sports,
etc. The participants were asked video recorded questions by the Deans and Vice-Deans of the
faculties. The Final question was
thought up and asked by the Head of the University. All the participants of the finals received valuable rewards, and
the winner got the finals Cup of the Intellectual Contest. The experience
got will be used and improved while conducting the contest alike next year.
It is well worth mentioning that the Contest had a
positive impact on students. For weeks after the first selective tour the
students had been discussing the tasks,
many of them trying to find the answers to the tricky questions afterwards, as
a result the level of erudition
being increased. The students were
interested in assessing their knowledge in an entirely new form. Teachers as
well witnessed the increase of the
level of interest in studies of those who
passed on to the second tour and the finals. It might be explained by their
desire to know the answers to the questions
the contents of which they were yet to
guess, all of which helped them to re-evaluate the information being
obtained at classes.
So the Intellectual Contest motivated the students to
study with greater interest, to compete in knowledge acquisition and forming
positive attitude to the studying
process. However, in our opinion, to obtain stable positive long-term effect
it is necessary to arrange yearly contests alike in all the universities of the
country with Mass Media coverage and extensive financial support on the
part of the state.
References:
1. Teaching English in China Can Be Educational For Both Teachers and
Students [ ýëåêòðîííûé
ðåñóðñ] – Ðåæèì
äîñòóïà:
2. College Scholastic Ability Test [ýëåêòðîííûé ðåñóðñ] – Ðåæèì
äîñòóïà:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Scholastic_Ability_Test