COMPETENCE APPROACH TO SELF-ASSESSMENT OF GRADUATES AS A BASIS FOR IMPROVING THE СURRICULUM OF MASTER'S PROGRAMS IN THE FIELD OF THE MANAGEMENT

In 2003 Russia joined to Bologna Process. The implementation of the terms of the Bologna Declaration has changed the traditional local educational system. Now Russian authorities developed the 4+2-year’s pattern for the Bachelor’s-Master’s system. For the admission to any master’s programs it is required to have a bachelor's degree.

Master’s programs should conform the Federal State Educational Standards (FSES) issued by Ministry of Education and Science for each professional area including the field of the management. Higher education institution has to be in lines with the requirements of FSES which are based on the competence approach. It means that at the end of the training course the students should possess the set of common cultural competences, common professional competences and special professional competences. During the current study the graduates of the master’s core training programs in the field of management made the self-assessment of the level of mastering the above-mentioned competences.

The objective of this study is to determine the directions of the improvement of curriculum of the core training program at the master’s level.

Methods of study included observation, survey, interpretation of the result of the interview, statistic and graphic methods.

The main participants were the master's students. Total number of the participations was 37 students including Chinese students.

At the first course of the training which is considered as the preliminary stage of carrying out a subsequent self-assessment the students studied the content of the FSES for the Educational Program: 38.04.03 Management (qualification (degree) "Master"). The curriculum for the fist year study mainly contained a set of educational disciplines aimed at the formation of the common cultural competences. In the same time some special educational disciplines were presented in the curriculum. The curriculum for the second year of study is aimed at the formation and development of the professional competences exclusively. Most of the educational disciplines and professional practices ensured the development of special professional competencies. Before the pre-diploma practice the graduates were offered to made independent self-assessment of the level of the mastering the three types of competencies in the range started from 1 to 10 (the maximum level).Self-assessment of the level of forming the common cultural competencies was the highest among the Russian students. Self-assessment of the level of forming the professional competencies provided the contradictory results. The weakest self-assessment of the level of mastering the special professional competencies was observed for a group of the master’s students who had Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Biology, Pedagogy. The self-assessment of the professional knowledge and skills done by representatives of that group of the graduates was lower than exam evaluation.

This finding has important implications for developing a special part of curriculum focused on the master’s students without a bachelor degree in management because two years is not enough for taking up a new field of study. The conclusion of the current stage of study is that it is necessary to develop individually oriented learning paths for that group of the master’s students taking into account their previous knowledge in the field of management.