ISSN: 1550-7521
ISSN: 1550-7521
Bereza NA*, Galkina TE, Kvitkobskaya AA, Prokhorova LV and Volenko OI
Russian State Social University, Moscow, Russia
Received date: March 19, 2016; Accepted date: March 29, 2016; Published date: April 05, 2016
Copyright: © 2016 Bereza NA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Professional services of designers are always in demand by large companies investing in representativeness and comfort of their offices. Designers in small business are indispensable for which dynamics of products change requires faster rates of design and development and further making new competitive products. High demand for computer design specialists is easy to observe at any recruiting web service. So, the basis task of training is mastering by students of product’s design solution methods since the idea till materialization via the use of theoretical knowledge and practice skills in the process as the basis for establishment of designer’s creative personality. Therefore, the urgency of this research is not doubtful. In the article we are looking at the essence and contents of designer’s professional communicative culture; we have revealed the typical levels of formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture in a college; we have determined a complex of social pedagogical environment necessary to form the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture in a college; we have characterized the principles of formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture in a college Keywords: Professionally
Professionally-communicative culture; Socio pedagogical conditions; Professional communication culture; Professional communication culture; Designer’s professional communication culture
Introduce the Problem
The modern realities of social economic development of a society suppose the intensification of professional training of students. Despite the aspiration of institutions of vocational and higher professional education to meet the demand of a modern employer, the problem of professional formation of college kids in many aspects has not been fully solved yet [1].
Nowadays a continuous multilevel educational system is being formed and it is developing, educating and socializing a person during all his/her life [2].
During the development of the system of professional education the institutions of vocational education face the issue of meeting the demand for highly-skilled personnel who would be able to meet the needs of the social stratum. The state and the society act as subjects of social order. However, to solve the problem of providing the labour market with vocational education specialists who would meet the new demand is not easy. There is a risk of a gap between the volumes of demand and the quality of the supply on the services market. One of the main factors for development of labour resources is their demand on the labour market [3-5].
The profession of a designer is relevant on the modern labour market and takes one of the key positions. The sphere of design embraces a great number of fields, i.e., industrial art, exhibition design, print design, fashion design, landscape design, computer design, etc. To develop any of those designers have to show their professional communicative skills that would allow them to comprehend the clients’ demand in a design product and to suitably present the results of their creative work. The consumer helps a designer understand the needs in design, to realize the perception of design product, to set the trend in further creative work. This fact is an evidence of the necessity for a designer to develop professional communicative potential and everyday implication.
A designer’s professional communicative culture which basis is laid in the course of professional training in an educational institution is the qualitative characteristic of such implication. All the above states the evidence of the necessity to form the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture yet at the stage of professional training in a college.
The contemporary scientific literature raises a question of researching communicative culture of a personality of a specialist who works in the context of system “human to human” [6].
Professional work of a designer presupposes constant interaction with various types of customers, employers and consumers of creative work. Level and quality of such interaction in many respects affect the ability of a designer to make professional personal and business contacts with subjects of professional work. Professional communicative culture is a designer’s qualitative characteristic in communicative development. It is necessary here to show the essence and the contents of a designer’s professional communicative culture. All the above-mentioned explains the choice of the topic and its topicality.
Explore the Importance of the Problem
In the recent decade, design as a sphere of professional work has developed and extended significantly. At the labour market there is an increase in the demand for professional designers who are able to actively interact with employers, customers and consumers and who also can demonstrate a high level of a professional culture [7,8]. The successful work of a designer in many respects depends on the level of professional communicative culture.
Professional communicative culture of a specialist is characterized as a qualitative characteristic of a subject of professional work that includes the system of communicative knowledge and skills that define the personal position in professional work and are the basis for its successfulness. Professional communicative culture of a specialist may be considered in the context of various aspects of life (professional and personal), with due regard for its peculiarities (age, sex, ethno-cultural, etc.).
Reading literature and interpreting the specifics of a designer’s professional communicative development has allowed us to come to the following understanding of the essence of professional communicative culture: it is a part of the general professional culture which is a qualitative characteristic of a designer’s personality, which reflects the daily occurrence of its productive communicative development which in its turn provides for the idea of the demand on the design market, its aesthetic likings and the successfulness of own aesthetically rich product on the labour market. Such culture is admitted by both artistic creative communities and those who act as consumers of this culture on the labour market. It basically defines the image of designers, their authority, their ability and readiness for communication in professional environment.
The analysis of the term presented allows to single out the main components of a designer’s professional communicative culture: axiological-perception of the value of a designer’s communicative culture in professional environment, accepting of the necessity and the importance of a designer’s professional communicative training on the personal level; perception and acceptance of some professional ethical standards in the sphere of a designer’s personal and business communications; cognitive volume and quality of the knowledge on the basics of a specialist’s professional communicative development in design and also on the essence, contents of advertising and design technologies, knowledge on differences and peculiarities of various types of personal and business communications in various fields of activity; interactive behavioural-mastery of the system of skills necessary for professional communicative development as well as the development of skill to prevent and solve conflict situations, to analyze own practical work, to impartially estimate himself/herself, own level of professional culture, productivity of personal and business communication and ability to adapt to the dynamically changing conditions of work.
The basics of a designer's professional communicative culture are being realized through situations of personal and business contacts where a future specialist is expected to master professional productive interaction, business communication. These basics are one of the main factors to form a positive image of designers: helping to successfully present themselves, to improve their business activity, to effectively solve professional tasks in design. A future specialist in autonomous professional career works on his/her improvement and during studies in a college learns the basics of the culture.
The typical levels of development of a designer's professional communicative culture are as follows: basic adaptive level – a positive attitude to professional career in design, formation of basic social perceptive skills as well as skills for making the very first personal and business contacts with different subjects of professional communications in design; skills for self-regulating emotional states, self-control of verbal and behavioural reactions, of the difficulty to adapt to nonstandard circumstances of professional practice; productive-situational – mastery of professional ethical standards in personal and business communications; formation of the skills for modelling the process of communication depending in specifics of any particular situation, mastery of a wide range of variable verbal and nonverbal means of personal and business communication, systematic goal achievement in professional communications; the ability to compensate weak points of own communicative culture, having some stable motives for self-development, selfimprovement of professional communications; professionalcreative – ability to choose an adequate strategy and tactics of communicative behaviour in nonstandard, complex situations in personal and business communication, consistent realization of own professional communicative potential and culture on the basis of qualified fulfilment of professional work, of the ability to present design products, to manage own professional behaviour even in nonstandard situations; high motivation for systematic self-improvement of communicative culture for the purpose of achieving maximum self-realization in the professional sphere [9].
To solve the problem, it is necessary to pay attention to the preparation of a specialist in the institutions of vocational education with regards to their own attitude to future professional career and self-improvement. The task of professional training is to help a developing personality make a conscious choice of social values and to form on their basis a stable consistent individual orientation system that is able to provide self-regulation and motivation for behaviour and activity. In this connection, there is a demand for specialists of a new type- initiative, creative, self-critical, informed and competent in all the aspects of professional work [10]. Meanwhile, these qualities alone do not guarantee a successful professional career of a designer. Professional training of a future specialist in a college should be closely connected with the personal development, with the formations of the basics of the professional communicative culture [11].
The educational process in a college is built on hands-on training of a future specialist. Furthermore, the hands-on component is the basis for structuring an individual pattern of educating a student not only in an educational institution but also while organizing a system of different types of practical training for students, while creating conditions for adaptation for professional career, occupying a niche in the professional sphere according to the specialization they are qualified in.
There are several features that can be singled out in a designer’s professional training that contribute to the creative potential activation: while studying something new a student is participating in solving creative productive tasks which are the source of new knowledge, new views and purposes; each student is learning, actualizing individual personal experience using the means that suit them and in particular their mutual work with a professor; individuality of each student and their autonomy in the educational activities develop due to autonomous goal setting in the sphere of their communicative valuable requests and needs.
Educational process in a college is of systematic character and is aimed at all-round creative personality development and at the ability to use the knowledge gained in their professional and everyday life.
In the Social College of Russian Social State University educational work is a crucial point as it is a joint educational, scientific creative and community work of students and teachers aimed at the fullest development and self-realization of the students [12].
In the course of the educational process a worldview analysis plays large role, professors are aiming at formation of an integral, creative, self-actualized personality of a specialist with high level of civic and professional culture.
In an institution of secondary education as opposed to higher education, students have more opportunities to institutes of higher education as a student of the former has a real opportunity to choose own way of personal, creative and professional development. They have such opportunity while joining different forms of extra education. The development of extra education system mainly depends on the connection between science and practice [13]. Extra education stands beyond the frames of educational standards. It is democratic as it puts into practice ideas of free education, education that is chosen, and shows the democratic focus of teaching and educational process [14]. As a part of Social College, different types of clubs are organized to demonstrate the personoriented approach for every student depending on their talents. This extra education in the college expands the space where students can develop their creative and cognitive activities, realize their personal qualities and demonstrate those abilities that often cannot be noticed during the main educational course. In the process of an extra educational activity a student can choose its form and contents.
One of the main characteristics of extra education is the upbringing idea when future designers are being purposefully and systematically brought up in the professional aspect.
There is some more beneficial to it – in the course of extra education students can find themselves in a “situation of success” where they can exhibit their best abilities and talents that cannot be demonstrated as a part of their general educational programme. Every individual is able to find his/her place and show what they can do according to their interests and needs.
A distinctive feature of the educational space is its emotional intensity. It determines emotional and value attitude to the world, to the professional creative work. This attitude may develop when students refer to lives and creative careers of famous artists or designers. Along with professional education, by positive examples of famous people students receive answers to many questions they have.
College as an open social-pedagogical system solves the important problem of expanding the cultural space of the micro-society opened up by a student. A future designer familiarizes himself/herself with cultural values taking into account the country he/she lives in, personal interests as well as traditions of micro-surroundings. In this way each student has a chance to immerse into a culture. This immersion is put into effect with the help of educational forms and methods taken from museum and theatre pedagogy.
One of the priority tasks of a college teacher is to develop in students the sense of responsibility and duty, to develop a person with spiritual and cultural values that have been accumulated by generations and a person who is aiming at developing those values. But these samples of culture should not be imposed on students while adequate conditions should be created where knowledge, values and samples would be adapted and lived through as their own achievements and discoveries.
Extra educational courses play a special role with regards to social adaptation and professional self-determination of students. Elective courses are gaining more and more popularity as they will then pave the way for success in students’ professional work.
In the process of social adaptation students may be engaged into activities of different creative unions according to their interests. In such creative unities students of different ages can show their worth, their level of culture, initiative and autonomy and also show their leadership qualities and the ability to team work. This fact is especially important in the conditions of a modern college.
Distinctive features of the educational process in a college are: realization of “unostentatious” professional upbringing engaging students into significant (in the sense of a personality formation) types of creative activities when an “unnoticeable” formation of moral, mental, cultural, professional and creative foundation of students occurs; creation of a wide common cultural and emotional background for a positive perception of the values of education and a more successful mastery of its contents; compensation of some or other training courses (mainly Arts) which are missing in education nowadays but which students need to define their own educational paths, to concretize life and professional plans, to form important professional and personal qualities.
In Social College the system of students’ internships is a priority task in the course of professional education. In the College it is regulated by “Thesis for the Organization and Implementation of the Students’ Internships Procedure”. During their internships students consolidate their theoretical and practical knowledge and develop communicative skills and professionally important qualities. Interns are put into special environment to show the basics of professional communicative culture in the realities of professional work.
In the course of professional training in a college students have an opportunity to realize their knowledge and skills in different types of practice. Invariant tasks are: practical mastery of methods and techniques of professional work implementation; formation of professional erudition; mastery of certain elements of professional communication; development of professionally meaningful qualities: attention, creative imagination, observation and empathy; formation of humanistic, socio-cultural outlook of a specialist; psychological adaptation to practical work [15].
A ranking place in the process of formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture is taken by prediploma work experience. During this internship the college professional training of a design student is sum up. In the course of the internship personal characteristics are given to students by their supervisors. In this characteristics comprehensive assessment are given including the practical skills gained, the level of readiness for productive professional work. In the context of this kind of internship a student does a qualifying work where he/she summarizes the contents and proposes some particular techniques for solving professional and creative tasks of future career.
It should be noted that internship is a special form of academic professional work. A teacher and a student are equitable subjects of this work. However, they solve internship tasks differently. A teacher’s main purpose while organizing an internship is to give students a chance to combine their theoretical knowledge with practice, to create conditions where they will gain a positive experience of their creative self-realization in future profession. In their turn, students should be willing to master individual professional skills for realizing creative projects, master skills of cooperation with colleagues; to give reasons for realizing their creative ideas in the professional sphere.
Summing it up it is possible to state that quality of future designers professional training in a college is defined by the degree of giving opportunities for self-realization in the professional sphere; of creating conditions for creative selfdevelopment and self-perfection of each student. As a result of such training, students are able to solve problems recurring in their professional work seeking brand new solutions and also are critical about their own work and are capable to express professional reflection.
The aim of professional education in a college is preparation of a competitive responsible qualified employee who has mastered professional culture and is ready for continuous professional advancement, ready for effective professional work and social mobility.
The result of a future designer’s professional training in a college is formation of the basics of professional communicative culture which is expected to further develop in an autonomous working career of a graduate in the process of his/her professional and personal self-improvement [3].
Describe relevant scholarship
Considering importance of formation of the basics of designer’s professional-communicative culture, many of its aspects and questions were reflected in research papers by different scientists, researchers. Such works include: questions of professional preparation of specialists in the system of general professional education [1]; development of design education; questions of importance of the communication culture for specialists whose professional activity is carried out in the system “human-human”, substantiation of essence and informative characteristics of communicative culture for these specialists; psychologists and pedagogues of communicative activity; questions of art self-fulfillment, development of professional art activity and art capacities of specialists and others.
The subject of the research is the process of a professional training in a college. The object of the research is the contents and technology to form the basics of a designer’s communicative culture in a college. The analysis presented is based on the use of theoretical (analysis and synthesis, generalization and classification, modelling and designing, etc.) and empirical (observation, i.e. participant observation, discussions, surveying, testing, method of expert judgement, pedagogical experiment, etc.) methods and also the use of methods of mathematical statistics.
At the same time, the literature analysis demonstrated that the questions that disclose the theoretical and methodological basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture in a social college have not been studied thorough enough. The materials studied allowed to indicate the contradiction between the necessity to form the basics a designer’s professional communicative culture and the insufficient theoretical and methodological resources in a college. The contradiction represented defined the problem (topic) for the research which essence lies in the necessity for the development of theoretical and methodological supply for formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture in a college. The problem given defined the research topic.
In the Russian pedagogical science the questions of formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture are not sufficiently developed, however, its many aspects and questions have been reflected in the works of different scientists and researchers. Such questions, in particular, include: questions of specialists professional training in the system of vocational education; design education development; questions of communicative culture importance for specialists who work in the system “human to human”, substantiation of the essence and content characteristics of communicative culture for the specialists in question; questions of psychology and pedagogy of communicative activity; questions of creative self-realization, development of professional creative activity and artistic abilities of specialists, etc. The actuality and scientific unreadiness predetermined the choice for the topic research.
Recruitment
The main results of future designers’ professional communicative culture formation are:
Students’ familiarizing with the future profession and developing the need for learning the main forms of a designer’s professional work and mastery of technologies necessary for their creative realization; adaptation to the educational process taking into account personal opportunities and educational services offered;
Students’ familiarizing with the future profession (studying tendencies of design development at exhibitions, communication with practicing designers, observation and studying of modern production in design);
Mastering of the main study programme, mastering of special knowledge and skills in design; personal transformation of acquired professional values, knowledge and skills in design that provide for the change between “Future Me” designer’s image, “Real Me” designer’s image (Me in the present) and “Ideal Me” designer’s image (that one I should become) [16];
Accumulation of the experience in the professional sphere through practice in the course of active forms of tasks and practical work and also creating the image of future designer called “Professional Me”.
Logics of the educational process in a college determines detection of social and pedagogical opportunities to form future designers’ professional communicative culture based on aims, tasks, tendencies, contents and pedagogical means (forms, methods, methodologies and technologies).
Formation in a college the basics of professional communicative culture lies in creating particular social and pedagogical conditions:
Organizational and managerial (marketing oriented studying of local labour markets demand for middle management designers and studying of employers’ requirements regarding designers’ professional communicative culture; systematic monitoring and expert judgement on formation level of the basics of professional communicative culture of college graduates, etc.);
Professional communicative (vocational education orientation to the motives and needs for improving a designer’s professional communicative culture, students’ motivation and activity about their professional communicative culture improvement);
Didactic (necessary material and technical base and the system of educational and methodical resources in an educational institution, organization of the process to form the basics of professional communicative culture in the context of future professional and creative work; priority of professional programmes of applied and hands-on character; structurallogical interdisciplinary connections of the design field with other types of designer’s professional training, professionally oriented creative educational environment, accumulation of the experience in realization of a designer’s professional communicative culture during an internship period for gaining primary professional skills, core specialization and pre-thesis internships).
In our opinion, to solve the tasks on formation of the basics of professional communicative culture in a college, a systematic activity approach is needed which is designed for revealing the essence of a designer’s professional communicative culture as a systematic phenomenon and for systematically presenting the basics for its formation in a college through active participating of each student. In the context of this approach a designer’s professional communicative culture is a part of professional culture and is a qualitative characteristic of designer’s personality.
Successful solving of the problem in connection with the basics of professional communicative culture formation in students depends on how some principles are realized in a college:
Contextuality principle is defined by the most full realization of the communication situation potential in educational activity;
Professional communicative appropriateness principle is mainly based on the ability to find and realize opportunities of professional communicative personality formation in educational process of a designer’s training;
Individual and group communicative demonstration principle directs towards provision of a designer’s individual professional communicative training and its appropriate demonstration in a group (in a study and in a professional group).
Training individualization principle requires consideration of students’ psychological and professional characteristics in the process of professional communicative culture formation [4].
Statistics and data analysis
In this research modern methods of collection and processing of the raw data were used (supervision, quiz, testing, scientific assessment, questionnaire, analyses using Pearson criterion).
Ancillary analyses
During the diagnostic process, demonstration of main components (axiological, cognitive, interactively-behavioral) describing students’ underlying risk for professionalcommunicative culture, were evaluated. For the assessment of axiological component “Inquirer of terminal values” was used to enable estimation of the axiological ideal and ethic personal landmarks, as well as “Method of finding personality’s sense paradigm for communication” by S.L. Bratchenko, methodic incomplete sentences for motivation readiness assessment, “Methods of diagnostics of personality’s focus” B. Bass.
For evaluation of the cognitive component there was evaluation of the knowledge level of the students with the help of module-rating system, used special test tasks for disciplines of professional disciplinary training. For the evaluation of the interactive-behavioral component analysis of results of academic and art practice was made (plain-air, museum practice), design-projects, externship. For this goal a special panel of experts of college teachers, heads of teams and professional designers was established.
Intervention or manipulation fidelity
Authenticity of research results predicate via methodological foundation its theoretic conditions; selection of the set of methods suitable for object, subject, goals of research; bringing theoretic pedagogical development in inseparable unity with practice activity, length of experiment, which confirm efficiency of developed model and technology of its realization; argumentation of conclusions, repeatability of research results and its representativity.
Baseline data
During the research comparison was used of the author’s data which were received as a result of the long-term experimental work and data which was received before on this topic.
The conception of Russian education modernization provides for creation of forms of independent quality evaluation of education to define a degree of compliance of the real educational results achieved with the requirements of the state, social and personal expectations with the further decision-making based on these reasonable managerial decisions. To provide an impartial quality evaluation of education in regions of Russia, tools and institutional basis for regional system of quality evaluation of education are created. They form a part of All-Russian System of Quality Evaluation of Education [17].
In modern Russia there is an actual strategic problem of making the quality system for education – for the science and practical implementation of quality evaluation of educational systems and personal development of students, for defining educational reforms social efficiency, their amendment subject to results, for the development of new strategies, tendencies in social development of society and an individual, for functional optimization of educational systems of different levels (local, municipal, regional, federal) [18].
A designer’s professional work success is defined by demands made towards professional communicative demonstration. These demands are dictated by the needs to be able to build relationships with employers, colleagues and also with consumers of design products; to carry on the professional dialogue, to be able to popularize the beauty of the art of design, to present results of their design work, A designer’s professional work, on the one hand, is characterized by his/her mastery and, on the other hand, by professional communicative culture.
A designer’s professional communicative culture as a part of professional culture characterizes a specialist’s personality in everyday communication. It is characterized by the skills to carry on a dialogue with colleagues, with customers of a design product, with managers; it provides for learning the demand of the market of design product, its design tastes, and presentation of its aesthetically rich product on the labour market and also defines designer’s image and authority in the professional creative environment. A designer’s professional communicative culture allows them to see beauty, to create artistic and aesthetic product, to affect the professional environment with the help of professional aesthetic culture. Its basics can be found in the process of education in a college. The experts are colleagues, design product consumers as well as designers themselves, through their self-appraisal [19].
The research conducted does not settle all the aspects of the problem. The perspective aspects for a further research may be as follows:
Studying of the features of a designer’s professional culture development in the context of an autonomous professional work with improvement of the culture in the system of higher professional education and in future in the system of advanced training;
College teachers’ preparation for working with a designer’s professional communicative culture formation;
Strengthening of colleges’ educational role in the formation of a designer’s professional communicative culture basics.
A designer’s professional work success is defined by demands made towards professional communicative demonstration. These demands are dictated by the needs to be able to build relationship with employers, colleagues and also with consumers of design products; to carry on a professional dialogue, to be able to popularize the beauty of the art of design, to present results of their design work, A designer’s professional work, on the one hand, is characterized by his/her mastery and, on the other hand, by his professional communicative culture.
A designer’s professional communicative culture as a part of professional culture characterizes a specialist’s personality in everyday communication. It is characterized by the skills to carry on a dialogue with colleagues, with customers of a design product, with managers; it provides for learning of the demand of the market of design product, its design tastes, and presentation of its aesthetically rich product on the labour market and also defines a designer’s image and authority in the professional creative environment. A designer’s professional communicative culture allows them to see beauty, to create artistic and aesthetic product, to affect the professional environment with the help of their professional aesthetic culture. Its basics can be found in the process of education in a college. The experts are colleagues, design product consumers as well as the designers themselves, through their self-appraisal.
The typical levels of development of a designer's professional communicative culture are as follows: basic adaptive, productive-situational and professional creative. They characterize a designer’s abilities to adapt in the professional environment, to create a design product, to be a propagandist of artistic and aesthetic taste in the professional environment. The criteria and indicators of their development are as follows: motivational-and-valuable; gnoseological and operational-and-activity.
The formation of the basics of a designer’s professional communicative culture is built on the following principles: contextual principle, professional communicative appropriateness principle, individual and group communicative demonstration principle and training individualization principle. It requires consideration of the complex of organizationally-managerial, professional communicative and didactic factors.
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