Theoretical and Analytical Foundations and New Technological Means of Overcoming Barriers to Personal and Professional Development of Educational Subjects

Abstract

One of the main issues of personal and professional development of a modern person is the necessity to study psychological barriers – those negative phenomena that have become widespread and affect individual and public consciousness: marginalism, procrastination and learned helplessness. The purpose of the research is to study the psychological content of the selected phenomena, their interrelationships; to develop and implement the technology of actualizing personal resources to overcome psychological barriers in personal and professional development of educational subjects. In line with the systematic personal development approach, based on the concept of professional development of an individual, a special methodological program has been developed and a plan of theoretical and empirical research (stating and forming stages) has been implemented. The study involved school and university teachers, schoolchildren and university students (n=738). The results of the study shows that teachers with low level of personal and professional development are characterized by signs of marginal consciousness, procrastination, due to the syndrome of learned helplessness formed in childhood and student life, as well as the position of a victim, transmitted and assigned by students. Personal helplessness is not formed among students if they develop in conditions of polysubject interaction, where the teacher is characterized by high level of professional development, meaningfulness of life, humanistic nature values and the absence of an existential vacuum. The developed and tested technology of actualizing personal resources (coping behavior, reflexive design and emotional involvement) proves its effectiveness by increasing the level of self-awareness and integral personal characteristics among educational subjects, reducing the learned helplessness, procrastination, and marginalism indicators, thereby ensuring an increase in the level of their personal and professional development.