Teachers’ readiness to work with children with signs of psychomotor aptitude

Moscow City Pedagogical University, Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology of Education, Department of Pedagogy, Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: marinagrisha2005@mail.ru

Abstract

The paper deals with the problem of teachers’ readiness to work with children showing signs of psychomotor aptitude. The authors perform a theoretical analysis of approaches to the definition of the concepts of psychomotor, psychomotor aptitude, physical intelligence. The place of psychomotor aptitude in the structure of general aptitude has been determined. The relationship between psychomotor skills and personality development is demonstrated. It was found that most of the children with signs of psychomotor aptitude remained without proper psychological and pedagogical support, which led to a significant decrease in their number with age. The main goal of the study is to determine the readiness of teachers to work with psychomotorically apt children. A diagnostic technique has been developed, aimed at determining the readiness of teachers to work with the specified contingent of children. The main attention was paid to the formation of the cognitive and activity components of readiness among teachers. The study was based on a comparative analysis of data obtained in two groups of respondents with different levels of professional training. Approaches to the definition of the concepts of readiness and professional readiness are generalized. The content of professional competencies (such as “knowing”, “being able”) in the context of the problem under consideration is presented. The results of the empirical study showed that in the process of professional training, the concept of psychomotor aptitude had not been formed. The ideas of the experiment participants about scientific and methodological approaches to organizing work with psychomotorically apt children are at an intuitive level, which indicates that teachers are not ready for this type of work and cannot fully take into account the special educational needs of their students. The prospects for further research in the field of training teachers to work with children with psychomotor aptitude have been determined.