Psychological Ways of the Development of Different Types of Thinking of Students as Their Soft Skills

Abstract

The purpose of our article is to analyze psychological ways of the develop­ment of different types of thinking of students as their soft skills.

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. The experimental method was the method of organizing empirical research.

The results of the research. We proved, that a distinction had to be made between theoretical and practical thinking. Practical thinking has the aim to solve certain problems or transforming practical situations, and often exists in conditions of time shortage. Theoretical thinking acts as a process of cognition. Another dichotomous classification of thinking divides it into analytical, namely, that which unfolds in time, consists of different stages in the consciousness of the person who thinks, who is intuitive, who proceeds quickly, does not have clear stages and who is realized in a little degree. A distinction is also made by us between creative and reproductive thinking. We believe that mental culture implies a productive nature of thinking, which cannot exist outside the assimila­tion of reproductive procedures by a person, therefore, both types of thinking are important for the formation of a mental culture. All these characteristics of different types of thinking are so called soft skills, which are the basis of the development of students as future professionals.

Conclusions. To learn a new subject and solve a problem facing a person, the subject’s creative thinking progresses through the implementation of many operations that are components of the thinking process. The following groups of thinking components are conventionally distinguished: thinking operations –> analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization, abstraction, concretization, clas­sification, systematization; thinking forms –> concepts, judgments, inferences; thinking qualities –> proveness, criticality, objectivity, laconicism, etc. We note that thinking cannot be reduced only to a system of intellectual operations. Occupying a central place in the structure of general intelligence, thinking and soft skills determine intelligence both procedurally and personally.