Formation of Pedagogical University Students’ Readness for Undergraduate and Graduate Research

Abstract

There are many research opportunities for prospective teachers in Ukrainian pedagogical universities to gain their first experience of organization and conducting research work with students of various age groups and educational levels, in scholarly and scientific societies of various forms. Within the framework of this approach, the pre-service teachers’ readiness for research work is an up-to-date issue that is in the focus of this paper. The study has been conducted in teacher training institutions of Central Ukraine with the experimental group consisting of 186 students and 22 teacher educators, and the control group numbering 192 students and 25 teacher educators who took part in scientific and scholarly societies and groups or were in charge of undergraduate or graduate research. A model of students’ engagement into active undergraduate and graduate research has been developed, incorporating the following integral parts: the objectives component (goals, tasks, approaches, and principles), the content-and-process component (stages, content, forms, methods, technologies, means), the process component (pedagogical conditions, forms, methods and means of teaching), and the results-and-evaluation component (parameters, levels, criteria, and indicators). A combination of empirical and theoretical research methods have been used to make the study conclusions more competent and authentic.