METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO INVESTIGATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEDAGOGICAL PROFESSIONALISM

Abstract

The article presents a systematization and scientific justification of methodological approaches relevant for studying the development of teachers’ pedagogical professionalism. It is established that ensuring the ideological coherence, value-defined orientation, and scientific validity of the research process is possible through the consideration of a set of principles, among which argumentativeness, verifiability, interrelation between theory and practice, comprehensiveness, dialecticality, evidence-based reasoning, unity of the historical and the logical, historicism, objectivity, consistency, systematicity, and integrity are paramount. The methodological approaches underlying the research are conventionally grouped into two major categories. The first group includes general scientific (axiological, acmeological, hermeneutic, critical, interdisciplinary, problem-based, and systemic) and specifically scientific (ethnopedagogical, historical-pedagogical, historical-comparative, paradigmatic, comparative-pedagogical, prognostic, and system-chronological) approaches which ensure the conceptualization of the study, determine its substantive orientations, and specify the procedures for analyzing pedagogical phenomena. The second group consists of procedural approaches, subdivided into contextual (administrative-regulatory, globalization-adaptive, demographic-resource, economic-managerial, industrial-integrative, critical-analytical, cultural, cross-cultural, politico-strategic, reformative, and sociocultural) and didactic (humanistic, didactic-methodological, ethical-moral, innovative, technological-integrative, competency-based, modular, communicative-interactive, culturally adaptive, personal, psycho-pedagogical, professional-practical, reflective, and subject-activity-based) ones. Their application makes it possible to trace the multidimensionality of the process of teachers’ professional development, encompassing both external sociocultural, economic, and political factors, as well as internal cognitive-reflective, emotional-personal, and activity-related mechanisms of professional growth. The formulated approaches, in their entirety, characterize pedagogical professionalism as a dynamic, multi-level, and holistic phenomenon formed at the intersection of individual experience, professional reflection, sociocultural context, and normative-institutional frameworks. A comprehensive understanding of the processes of teachers’ professional development requires the integration of general scientific, specifically scientific, and procedural approaches, enabling the disclosure of not only the structural and functional characteristics of pedagogical activity but also the deep personal and meaning-based determinants of professional formation in the context of modern societal transformations.