Social Intelligence of a Teacher as a Factor of the Stimulation of Cognitive Interests of Students

Abstract

The purpose of the article is: to provide the experimental research of social intelligence of a teacher as a factor of the stimulation of cognitive interests of pupils.

Methods of the research. The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization. Also in our research we used empirical methods, such as statement study and molding experiment. With the aim to diagnose the level of the development of social intelligence of teachers we used the test of J. Gilford and M. O’Sullivan «Research of Social Intelligence», adapted by O.S. Mykhailova.

The results of the research. The data obtained was indicated that women (teachers of the natural sciences) were more sensitive to the nature and various manifestations of human relationships and they were able to show considerable role of flexibility in the situations that were arisen. This may be explained by the fact that education in the paradigm of «love» (passion) for the natural sciences contributes to the development of women’s style aimed at emotional sensitivity, communicative compatibility. Men, on the contrary, are encouraged to develop the ability to hide and suppress their feelings, that is, emotional restraint, competition, activity, the ability to control the situation are encouraged.

So, speaking about social intelligence and its role in teaching activities, the latter should be analyzed in terms of the impact on its productivity, efficiency and conditions of optimization. It should be noted that in the pedagogical activity the concept of «productivity» is considered from the point of view of two positions: functional and psychological productivity. The functional productivity of the teacher’s activity is as a clearly constructed system of didactic methods and techniques, the basic updating of which are communicative skills. In such a way psychological productivity is the newness of the personality of a student, the level of his/her social adaptation that will contribute to the process of the development of social intelligence.

Conclusions. Taking into account the specifics of each particular object, pedagogical activity is built upon the laws of communication. In any classifications the structure of communication in the foreground appears its cognitive aspect, which largely determines the productivity of teaching activities. Thus, we revealed the regularities of the influence of the level of productivity on the understanding of the behavior of the partner in communication, which indicates the actualization of social intelligence. We found that teachers with a low level of pedagogical activity can only perceive external manifestations of the communication of partners, also their behavior without analyzing its goals and motives. However, teachers with a high level of productivity of pedagogical activities can understand the deep essence of the personality-integrational properties of the person, identifying the goals and motives of his/her behavior.

Consequently, the productivity of teaching activity directly depends on the effectiveness of the knowledge of a teacher on the personality of students, that is, it depends on socio-perceptual peculiarities of both – a teacher and pupils.

To our mind, social intelligence of a teacher is updated due to the mechanisms of knowledge of a teacher the pupils’ personal qualities and characteristics. One of such mechanisms is pedagogical social-perceptual stereotyping. For the first time this mechanism was investigated in the experiments, in which positive and negative stereotyping of the pupils’ personal qualities and characteristics were determined. Also, we identified the influence of evaluative standard stereotypes on social-perceptual stereotyping. It was proved that the negative influence on interpersonal interaction in the pedagogical process had stereotypes that were taking into account an absolute, unchanging character, but for each teacher there were subjective evaluative stereotypes and the teacher focused on their content for the purpose of the actual subjective assessment of the pupil’s personality. Then subsequently, this mechanism of pedagogical activity will facilitate the study of personal qualities and characteristics from a professional point of view. In turn, all this indicates a significant level of the development of social intelligence of a teacher.