The Peculiarities of Tutors’ Professional Competences and Interpersonal Relationships between Tutors and Interns in the System of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of mentorship within the MIA system. The solution to this problem ensures effective adaptation of the personnel to their professions. The sample comprised 91 internal affairs officers. The methodologies used are the following: 1) Diagnostics of Interpersonal Relations (DIR) questionnaire by Sobchik L.N.; 2) Commu-nicative and Organizational Aptitudes (COA) inventory; 3) an authorial methodology for assessing mentors’ professional competence. The results of the study demonstrated that the most significant competences that mentors possess are communication skills, analytical competence and knowledge of the divisions they work for. It has been established that trainees’ estimation of their mentors’ professional competence and knowledge of the divi-sions is better than that of the mentors (p ≤ 0.00001); the latter tend to underestimate their own professional skills, underrate their own virtues, show a lower level of organizational aptitudes, but a higher level of communicative ones. In their interpersonal relations mentors tend to assume an independent-dominant and “bossy”-dominant behavior style.

Keywords

• mentors
• trainees
• professional competence
• psychological counselling
• self-esteem
• com-municative and organizational aptitudes
• models for interpersonal relations.