Abstract:

The article examines the question of developing mindful professional responsibility in university students with varying degrees of victim mentality.

The main goal in this study is the unveiling of professionalism in students with varying degrees of victim mentality while studying at the university.

The methodological basis is built upon the humanistic paradigms introduced by A. Maslow, the system and subject-oriented activity approach in studying personalities by S.L. Rubinstein, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, B.F. Lomov and others.

The study was conducted through questioning, observation, expert analysis and testing.
Students from different pedagogical specialties took part in the study. In total 337 people were involved, aged 19-21, which are 1st and 2nd year students. On the first stage 1st year students were questioned and took part in the testing. The questionnaire included questions characterizing the level of responsibility towards different aspects of professional activity. Afterward, the responsibility judgement test was conducted through which the structure of responsibility and other systematic factors determining the elicitation of responsibility were identified. The other stages included expert analysis and observation. The experts were university educators, who on a five-point scale rated the level of responsibility within the educational process. The observation map included such criteria as the consistency of students’ responsibility in the educational process and their level of involvement in depicting responsible behavior. For studying different forms of victim mentality, the propensity for victim behavior methodology developed by O.O. Andronnikova was utilized.

While processing the results with the help of factor analysis it was established that the highest indicators of victimhood are the tendency for aggressive behavior showing at 24%, the tendency for hyper-social victim mentality showing at 31%, tendency for dependent and helpless behavior showing at 29%. The remaining 16% of respondents either didn’t show any sign of victim mentality or fell into the group with non-critical and self-destructive behavior.

In the next stage respondents with the dominating indicators of victim mentality were analyzed for their level of responsibility. During two years each group of respondents were studied exclusively in regards to professionalism. It was measured by their productivity during their practice, attendance and work in master classes, conferences, practical and laboratory classes.

In the course of the study it was established that professionalism and professional responsibility are successfully formed in the process of professional preparations by the respondents with dominating hyper-social victim mentality. At the same time, it was proven that the respondents with such forms of victim mentality as tendencies for dependency and helplessness strive not to take responsibility in decision-making in their professional tasks.

Thus, in the course of this study it was established that there is a statistically significant connection between the formation of professional responsibility in the process of studying at the university and varying forms of victim mentality. The accrued results in this stage of the study allow us to predict individual strategies of professional development in students.

Keywords:

Personality, victimhood, responsibility, students, analysis.