Introduction
In the scientific literature, a unified approach to the concept of socio-psychological intervention has not yet been developed. It is considered as a method, form, technology, type of professional activity of psychologists. As the basic semantic units, such concepts as interaction, cooperation, creation of conditions, assistance, activity orientation, work with the object are used. The main thing is that the opinions of psychologists are similar, the goal of psychological support is the unity of activity of all participants in the educational process to create conditions conducive to activating their own development resources and launching personal self-development mechanisms in solving various life situations.
The theory and practice of psychological support are based on the ideas of strengthening the subjectivity of communication partners, helping the individual in independent creative development. Under the subject, it is generally accepted to understand, first of all, as a person who is able not only to appropriate the world of objects and ideas but also to produce them, transform, create new ones (Liang & Lin, 2015). So, the basis of psychological support for the development of students’ personalities is the idea of strengthening the subjectivity of communication partners, aimed at creating mental conditions for successful learning and assisting in independent creative development in situations of school interaction.
In this study, the integration of the techniques that allow learners to reconsider their social belonging by incorporating self-reflection into the curriculum is expected to produce the required effect. Research shows that the use of self-reflection leads to positive outcomes in learners due to the integration of causal mechanisms into the learner’s perception of their performance and academic development. It is believed that the use of the specified framework will motivate students that demonstrate low achievements to pursue more gratifying academic goals and become engaged in their performance.
The goal of the research proposed in this paper is to determine the efficacy of the selected technique for advancing students’ learning process and addressing the difficulties that they are currently experiencing as a result of socio-psychological factors, namely, the ones associated with stereotypes and myths about the representatives of different cultures. The issue under analysis is linked to the problem of stereotyping in modern society and the strategies that can be applied to combat it effectively in the academic setting. Since the problem of social belonging may evolve into the threat of bullying in the academic environment, creating a teaching approach that will support the vulnerable demographic and protect them against the threat of bullying will be needed. The paper will be organized in the following way: it will open with an introduction and the statement of purpose, relevance, and key hypotheses. Afterward, the literature review and the methodology sections will follow, with the analysis and the discussion of its results proceeding. The paper will end with a conclusion and a list of recommendations for improving the performance of low-achieving students by addressing the challenges that they face in the sociocultural environment to which they need to adapt. Specifically, the integration of the model that challenges learners’ perception of social belonging will be discussed with instructions for implementing it in different academic settings provided.
Methods
The psychologist can use these principles to support the development of the personality of students in working with students studying in specialized and non-core classes of a comprehensive school. However, for profile training, the principle of continuous personal and professional development is leading, and all the rest are subordinate to it. Within the framework of the psychological support paradigm, the adults around the student provide him with various support in accordance with their social, professional, or personal position. Due to the fact that the teacher sets the parameters of the educational space to a significant degree, his or her role is of great importance in orienting the student to one or another path of intellectual and ethical development. In this system, the parent is given the part of the carrier and translator of certain micro-cultural values, while its impact is not so much formative as regulatory.
The profile stage of training is based on the ability of students to independently and purposefully engage in self-education, self-change and is also based on the process of active personal and professional self-determination. At this stage of psychological support, the psychologist solves the following tasks. It is important to assist in the self-study of the professional potential of the student’s personality. It is necessary to maintain a favorable climate in the student and pedagogical environment and to assist in resolving the issues of individual development of high school students.
Given the nature of learning, the most appropriate way to measure it is a diagnostic training experiment, i.e., an experimental technique for assessing intellectual development or individual components of mental activity by identifying the subject’s potential abilities to learn new knowledge and develop solutions (Bonsaksen, 2016). If psychometric intelligence tests analyze the slice of the achieved level of particular intellectual expertise, then diagnostics using the principles of a training experiment reveals the dynamics of solving a particularly new problem as a result of directed educational, training, and developmental influences. Thus, if the traditional test has advantages in stating the available capabilities, then this method more adequately solves the problem of predicting the development of abilities.
A methodological text is specially selected, the content of which is not provided for in the curriculum. Such a document should have certain properties: be fundamental and typical for a given age of students. To measure different levels of subject learning, tasks of three difficulty levels have been developed. The essence of the diagnostic training experiment is as follows. First, students are given a text to study at a certain time. Then the text is collected, and tasks of the first difficulty level are issued. After a fixed time, functions of the first level are received and granted functions of the second level of complexity. By analogy, they do with tasks of the third difficulty level.
It should be noted that all tasks were compiled according to the content of a special text, and the answer to them, respectively, can be found in this text. Tasks of the third level of complexity additionally suggest the presence of general erudition, regardless of the specifics of the text. After completing all the tasks, the number of correct answers is calculated. The proportion of correct answers to completed tasks of each difficulty level allows evaluators to judge the level of learning in this discipline. This technique has been specifically tested for reliability and validity. In order to determine its retest reliability, a parallel form of the method was repeated again after two months on the same sample of subjects.
To conduct the study and prove the efficacy of the approach that involves changing the student’s perception of social belonging, one will have to use the quantitative research method; thus, the extent of the efficacy that the approach based on the perception of social belonging will be evaluated. A case study involving a comparison between two groups will be used, with 100 participants recruited from a local college. By introducing the approach based on the change of social belonging in learners to one of the groups and maintaining the traditional teaching framework in another, one will determine the changes in the performance rates of the students in each group. A sample size of 20 students will be chosen for the analysis, with the further performance of the Student’s t-test to define alterations in the performance levels of learners.
Discussion
The significance of sociopsychological support for students with disabilities is often underrated, yet it is believed that, by creating a teaching strategy into which the principles of sociopsychological support are interwoven, one will be able to adjust the quality of the learning process significantly. After facilitating the environment in which students with disabilities will feel welcome and encouraged to perform better. With the focus on the task-value intervention model, one will be able to motivate a learner to recognize the barriers that they will have to overcome in attaining academic success; one will be able to improve a student’s academic score. For this purpose, framing intervention as the attempt at assisting the learner in defining their social belonging will help to forward their academic performance and assist them in adjusting to the demands that teachers set and the environment in which the student has to learn (Parkes, Stein, & Reading, 2015). For this purpose, the tools and materials that will frame a learner’s perception of their social belonging should be utilized. It is believed that, after the specified change is integrated into the educational environment, students that experience difficulties in attaining the required results will perform significantly better.
The importance of self-education and self-directed learning should be outlined especially clearly in this regard. Since the proposed model of changing the environment in which students will absorb critical knowledge and develop the appropriate professional skills, teachers will have to encourage students to develop the motivation and engagement needed to engage in self-directed learning. The described step will facilitate better adjustment to the academic setting and simplify the process of socialization for the target demographic since learners experiencing difficulties in social interactions will no longer have to face challenges when prioritizing their academic objectives.
The proposed psychological intervention is believed to increase students’ resilience, yet it may not be the ultimate solution to the problems that they face in the socio-cultural context of their academic institutions. Instead, they use of the model in question will boost the extent of their agency and introduce them to the tools for building resilience and self-reliance. Therefore, the use of the approach that will help learners to approach the issue of their social belonging and explore the rules and functions that they play in their current academic setting will only provide the background for them to develop their own strategies for managing the challenges of their academic environment. However, due to the presence of the support offered by an educator, learners that are having difficulties with learning =due to the problems adapting to the sociocultural context of the school will receive the support needed to revisit their goals and focus on their academic progress. Consequently, the extent of students’ performance is expected to rise, whereas the issues with their management of sociocultural problems in the environment of the school will subside.
Moreover, the importance of building engagement among learners should not be forgotten. The paper by Chen, Chavez, Ong, and Gunderson (2017) demonstrates quite clearly that the focus on student’s motivation and the extent of their engagement with the academic material determines their achievements in the educational environment to a significant degree. Thus, encouraging learners to prioritize their activities in the school setting is expected to produce a positive effect. However, in addition to the provided framework of building a self-sufficient and self-dependent learner, one may also need to consider incorporating the tools that will allow a student to experience the support of their educators and peers, which is why the approach offered by Chen et al. (2017) may require additional shaping. Specifically, the support of a teacher will need to be incorporated into the framework for assisting learners with managing the challenges in their social interactions. As a result, the process of getting familiarized with the new environment and developing a rapport with others in the educational context will lead to creating the conditions under which a student is more likely to focus on studies (Chen et al., 2017). Therefore, the proposed steps will have a positive effect on a learner’s ability to engage in the academic process, absorb the required knowledge and train the associated skills.
In conclusion, socio-psychological intervention is the direction of the psychological service, ensuring the unity of activities of all participants in the educational process to create conditions for development and provide students with assistance aimed at activating their own development resources, launching personal self-development mechanisms in solving various life situations, and on a relationship system, to strengthen the subjectivity of communication partners in situations of school interaction. Psychological support for students is seen as an accompaniment along his or her life path, which involves moving along with him, next to him, and sometimes in front. In the conditions of specialized training, psychological support allows a psychologist to help students solve a number of problems associated with their further professional development.
References
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