Abstract:

Modern society is viewed as the information-based one, and a university graduate has to deal with the ever-increasing amounts of profession-related information that needs to be managed effectively. Thus, a graduate’s information skills (i.e. those in information search, processing, analysis, storing and transfer) largely determine his/her career success. In this context, the information competency is under research as one of the key components of the professional competency of a technical university graduate who means to be a success in the personnel market.

Despite the above mentioned, Russian engineering and agricultural universities do not always meet the requirements set by the modern society, and their graduates tend to experience certain challenges in terms of the information competency. As the authors’ previous research revealed, those universities feature some common problems that may lower their efficiency in information competency development; those problems include the low quality of admission, lack of proactive update of the course content, low student motivation, and insufficient integration into the global academic space.

The present paper deals with the relevance of the career-oriented cross-cultural language training to the development of the information competency of students of engineering and agricultural universities. Respectively, the objective of this research was to theoretically background, develop and experimental test the lingua-didactic methods of the development of the information competency of technical students.

The research questions were these:
1) What are the roles of the information competency and the cross-cultural competency in the structure of the professional competency of a technical university graduate?
2) What may be the efficient lingua-didactic methods of the development of the information competency of technical students?
3) What would be the criteria for assessing the level of the information competency development?

The research methods include the content analysis of the relevant quality academic publications and Russian and international normative documents, the analysis of the efficient teaching practices, questioning and testing of students, course teaching monitoring and pedagogical supervision.

The eight-year experimental teaching based on the theoretical background established in the first phase of the research was carried out in Moscow State Agroengineering University (2012-2014), Saratov State Agrarian University (2014-2015), National University of Science and Technology - MISIS (2015-2017), and Russian Timiryazev State Agrarian University (2014-2020).

The research findings (i.e. the lingua-didactic methods of the development of the information competency of technical students, and the criteria for assessing the level of the information competency development) may be used for the development of the career-focused content of the university courses in Humanities.

Keywords:

Information competency, technical university, career training, cross-cultural training, language training, professional competency, engineering education.