Pedagogy /
Maria Fedorova, cand. of Philological sciences
Siberian State Automobile and Highway Academy
(SibADI), Omsk, Russia
Developing supportive scientific environment for technical university
students
Our main interest
in this paper is optimizing the system of student research in Russian technical
universities. The role of student research could not be overestimated now.
There are two reasons for this. The external one is the social expectations,
when research is viewed as a mail tool of implementing new knowledge into
technologies and thus creating innovations and developing the whole society.
The internal, or personal one, is the fact that research itself forms some
competences which let the university graduate upgrade his level of knowledge
and experience in any sphere he works at, as well as to become very competitive
at the modern labour market.
The base of the
modern student research system in Russia is the number of organizational forms
developed during the XX century. They are well-known and still widely used
thanks to their efficiency. Among them we can name the following: students’
scientific groups and societies, research seminars, scientific laboratories and
students’ research conferences. But today, facing globalization processes, the
whole system of higher education is experiencing some changes, such as easy
access to knowledge, internationalization, and increasing usage of ICT.
These tendencies
are also reflected in the research processes: scientists are working in
extended research groups, form networking and, as a result, create E-Science.
The process of scientific communication also changes greatly: paper-only system
of knowledge storage and transfer gives way to electronic facilities. Though,
the need of peer review and face-to-face formal and informal communication
grows and becomes more relevant.
That is why
technical university graduate is expected to have both professional and basic
competencies, i.e. communicative (social), psychological, IT and some others.
We strongly believe that students’ research has an influence on key personal
skills and abilities, helps to find a solution in any difficult situation,
forms creativity and self-confidence. Of course, in combination with
professional activities, it also influences person’s professional skills.
Main difficulties
in the sphere of student research that Russian technical universities face nowadays
are:
1.
Low level of students’ motivation in
research:
-
having no interest in research,
mostly because of their young age (for Bachelors), because of combining
education with work (for Masters), or even because of time gap (for Masters who
have graduated from the university long ago before being enrolled to Master
courses);
-
having no financial support for
research.
2.
Low level of teachers’ motivation
because of lack of time and small financial support for supervising students
engaged in research.
3.
Low level of communicative skills
including foreign language competence.
4.
Low level of social competence.
We suggest that
the developing supportive scientific environment and optimization of methods
and technologies of students engaging into scientific activities will increase
the efficiency of students’ research.
This optimization
should be connected with all the levels of scientific environment in a technical
university. These levels are: institutional (research management), information
and technological (methodical), didactic (technologies of engaging students
into research and supervising the research itself).
So, what should
be done on every level of this system?
1.
Institutional level includes objectives, forms, and supporting programmes for young
researches.
Objectives:
The university corporate culture should be oriented on engaging students into
research beginning with their first years of education. Of course, not many of
them might be interested, but the more motivated they will be, the more
positive results such orientation could bring in the future. Student research
should be seen and developed as a system, and realized as a complex process
with its quality criteria and improvement opportunities.
Forms: New forms of
student research are students’ business incubators, or technoparks, students’
participation in the university projects financed by the state and the private
sector, young researchers’ schools, student research councils. All of them can
now take form of distance learning [1, 2, 3, 4].
Supportive programmes:
Such programs should define who can
have financial support from the university and on what conditions. In the
Siberian Automobile and Highway academy (Omsk), as well as in some other
technical universities, the programme called “Student-researcher” includes all
the documents and indicators connected with young researchers and is aimed to
motivate and support such students [5, 6].
There should also
be created supportive programmes for scientific supervisors. Their aim should
be to improve teachers’ psychological competence, to provide them with such
information as types and dynamic of students’ motivation, psychological
characteristics of different generations, and so on. Financial support of
teachers interested in working with young researches should be an obligatory
part of this programme.
2.
Information and technological
(methodical) level.
Information
support includes free Internet access, free library recourses access (both to
paper and electronic documents), informing students about scientific
conferences, seminars, competitions. It is a main tool of scientific
communication, both formal and informal, both distance and face-to face.
Technological
support may have a form of
“how-to-do-research”, “how-to-write-a-scientific-article” and materials like
these, database; or students’ Research centre (laboratory) with functions of
providing students methodical support on any stage of their research.
3.
Didactic level. Here, the main principles of teaching students to do research may
include:
- implementing the
person-oriented approach in the form of individual learning trajectories;
- creating and
implementing a programme course “Student research in a technical university”
for needs of young researchers schools (centres) or for an optional course as a
part of student education programme;
- paying special
attention to the subjects which form communicative skills (humanities);
- making strong
interrelations with industrial enterprises with the aim to give a student
opportunity to implement his research results;
- engage students
in various kinds of international cooperation, which will let them enter
international scientific environment and improve both communicative and social
skills.
So, variety of
students’ research organizational forms is a sign of the student research
system modernization. We found out, the there are little Student Research
Councils in Russian technical universities. At the same time, their
specialization determines creation of business-incubators (technoparks) and
Student-Researcher programmes.
On condition that
traditional and innovative forms of student research managing, and criteria of
students’ research activity will be combined in a system of University Student
Research and will be connected with the University Research as a whole, and
implemented in the educational process, we could speak about the final stage of
Student research institutionalization and predict its’ high results.
REFERENCES
1.
URL: http://conf.uran.ru/.
2.
URL: http://rosmu.ru.
3.
URL: http://www.bikr.ru.
4.
URL: www.portal.tpu.ru.
5.
Zavyalov A.M., Fedorova Ì.À. The system of technical university student training for research: substantiation
and suggestions [Text] // Omsk scientific journal. – 2011- ¹ 1- 222ñ. – ISSN 1813 – 8225 – C. 89-92.