Background. In today’s science, the issue of changes in the internal affairs bodies management is one of the most crucial ones. In carrying out their duties the department heads must protect the rights and legitimate interests of citizens in accordance with the law. They are allowed to restrict the rights of citizens if it is required by their professional duties. That is why further development of a scientifically based approach to high department heads in the internal affairs bodies as a trigger for transformation processes should be recognized as absolutely relevant.

Objective. Identifying major personality traits required for high executive posts in the internal affairs body; identifying the most significant personality traits and management style of the department heads in the territorial internal affairs bodies; studying individual psychological determinants of career adaptability of internal affairs bodies department heads.

Design. The empirical research was carried out in the internal affairs agencies of the Krasnoyarsk Krai territorial unit and included three stages: 1. Conducting a survey among employees to identify the most significant personality traits required for high executive posts in the internal affairs body. The sample included 250 respondents with work experience from 3 to 25 years. 2. Conducting a survey aimed at determining the management style. The sample included 44 respondents. 3. Studying individual career adaptability of internal affairs bodies department heads. The following methods were used: “Adaptivity” (multi-factor personality test) method by A.G. Maklakov and S.V. Chermyanin was used to diagnose social adaptation; R. Cattel’s polyfactorial personal questionnaire; G. Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) questionnaire; A.Kokoshkarova Questionnaire for neuroticism and tendentious personal deviations (QNTPD); Bass-Darki aggression methods. To determine neuropsychic stability, the “Prognosis” method was used. The sample included 44 respondents.

Results. The level of career adaptability in department heads of the territorial internal affairs agencies of the Krasnoyarsk Krai Territory is directly related to neuropsychic stability, which is due to the presence of significant correlations with the “Prognosis” method (0.8267). There are significant correlations of career adaptability with indicators of neurasthenia (0.4398) and vegetative disorders (0.4121) according to Kokoshkarova method. According to the results of the mathematical-statistical analysis of the relationships of career adaptability with the Cattell method, significant correlations were identified: C (-0.3659) – increase in emotional stability with the development of career adaptability; L (0.2758) – confidence; H (-0,2617) – leader’s courage and psychological readiness for justified risk; M (0,1922) – adaptability to everyday service and practical views protects the manager from losing touch with reality; N (0.1198) – career adaptability develops, straightforward behavior substitutes avoiding excessive scheming or inappropriate flexibility.

Conclusion. The results can be used by practical psychologists when working with department heads of the territorial internal affairs agencies located in the republics of Hakassia, Tyva, Altay, Krasnoyarsk Krai, in the regions of Irkutsk, Kemerov, Tomsk. Further research to determine the impact of management conditions on transformations in the department heads ‘s personality is to be conducted.

Background. The paper is based on specifics of the professional activity of specialists of the State Inspectorate of Small Size Vessels of Russian EMERCOM (SISSV) is a highly demanding job that requires specific individual psychological features to successfully fulfill their duties. Such individual psychological features are important for experts, and also for candidates to the positions in the GIMS used as recruitment criteria.

The Objective. of the study is to identify job skills that determine the professional effectiveness of SISSV experts, to identify the relationship between job skills and career success and to determine psychological indicators strongly associated with success.

Design. An expert survey (N = 40) was conducted to determine psychological indicators that contribute to professional success of SISSV experts. We carried out psychological assessment of acting SISSV experts (N = 275) to determine the presence and the level of necessary skills. Based on expert assessments, the inspectors were assigned to either successful or unsuccessful groups. The resulting polar groups were compared using Mann-Whitney criterion. Correlation analysis (Spearman) was used to access the strength of association between professional success and job skills. We also used factor and regression analyses to model the structure of job skills associated with professional success of acting SISSV specialists and job applicants.

Results. allowed to establish reliable differences between the polar groups on following characteristics (p ≤ 0.05): intelligence, abstract and operative thinking, intellectual liability, attention characteristics (volume, concentration, selection, distribution). They were defined as job skills for SISSV experts. The results of correlation analysis (p = 0.01, p = 0.05) showed that the specialists professional success depended on the presence and level of formation of job skills. We determined the structure of job skills associated with professional success.

Conclusion. The obtained results may be used to optimize the processes of psychological monitoring and psychological selection of the acting specialists of SISSV of Russian EMERCOM and applicant for the position.

Background. The paper presents the results of a sociological study that focuses on the attitude towards the reform of the Russian researcher sphere in education. Much attention is paid to the influence of various stumbling blocks that influence the efficacy of research work. The relevance of the study is due to the psychological barriers for understanding the features of the creative self-actualised researcher.

Objective. The influence of age and social factors of professional status (e.g. scientific degree, scientific title, position) on the importance of various barriers that reduce the efficacy of scientists’ work is analyzed.

Design. According to the authorship questionnaire, which included 72 questions, 721 researchers were interviewed. The survey was conducted in different cities and towns of Russia, the respondents included those with different levels of scientific qualifications, and different experience of research work.

Results. The research showed that in the hierarchy of various barriers, those that are associated with the material and social status of the researcher are dominating. Psychological barriers themselves play an important role: lack of promotional opportunities, lack of professional communication environment, strained relations with management and colleagues. Correlation dependence between the barrier concerning funding of new projects and such motivational attitudes as aspiration to independence and professional self-actualisation are revealed. The upgraded position reduces satisfaction of material needs, and, on the other hand, the importance of those factors that concern career self-actualisation (e.g. funding a new research project) is emphasized. It is established that socio-psychological factors (satisfaction with the results of their professional activities, position in the scientific team) actualize the significance of barriers that fix the unfortunate socio-psychological relations in the team.

Conclusion. The obtained results allow to conclude that dissatisfaction with their material and social status for researchers are the most significant barriers preventing the research work. The study revealed a characteristic set of motivational attitudes related to the researcher’s desire for independence and self-actualisation. Te survey materials showed that the combination of reasech work and teaching is subjectively perceived as a barrier that prevents career self-actualisation.

The paper considers the possibility of using the principles of gradual development of intellectual activity in the training experts of developmental psychology. The issue of the managed development of professional work components is being raised. A possible way of working is discussed analysing the features of child actual development aimed at discovering the reasons for the learning difficulties, which served as an excuse for the parents to seek psychological assistance. The method of analysis becomes an important competence of a consulting psychologist against the background of a high variety of forms of mental development. Development of readymade algorithms for solving a problem situation, covering all their diversity seems next to impossible. In this regard, there is a need to prepare students for an independent analysis of a specific life situation. It is the ability to this kind of analysis that ensures the expert’s preparedness to develop recommendations that contribute to harmonizing the child’s development.

Elaboration of this competence implies the integration of knowledge and skills acquired in various training courses. This possibility is provided by shaping the student’s orientation in the learned action taking into account its level structure. Semantically speaking, orientation allows one to recover the logic of the child’s examination and child development according to the goal set. The orientation is based on the mechanisms and conditions of mental development. The choice of adequate diagnostic tools becomes an independent task of the analysis that requires understanding of the available techniques and diagnostic tools. Summing up, the operational level of orientation provides competent use of the means chosen during diagnostic examination. Taking into account the orientation level of the developed activity makes it possible to integrate the knowledge and skills gained in the process of training into psychologist expert practice.

Self-determination is deemed as search and continuous refinement of the meaning of the future life. The paper discusses various options for self-determination, i.e. professional, personal, social, and other ones.

Self-determination means making a certain choice. This may be career choice («career self-determination»), choice of a moral position («personal self-determination»), choice of one’s position in society associated with image and style of life, status in various social groups («social self-determination»), choice of options («Leisure selfdetermination »), or even choice of relationship type («family self-determination»), etc.

The generalized options and methods of orientation in various «space» of self-determination are highlighted. The psychological «spaces» are regarded as a metaphor that reflects and arranges a certain field of search for the meanings of self-determination. Each «space» is constructed according to a certain principle based on certain criteria. Psychological «space» may be determined as diverse, and in this set of self-determining personality one must be able to navigate. There are main groups of psychological «space» including the typology of options for planning life and career, the typology of work activity, the typology of professions. It is important for self-determination to define the future professional activity. Various methods are presented that allow a person to get a career orientation in complex «space» of career and life choices. Particular attention is paid to self-determination of children in adolescence. Various modern approaches in career guidance and P.Ya. Galperin’s career «orientation» principles are drawn to a concordance.

The paper describes an empirical study of the levels and types of educational career orientation of students of teacher-training major from the first to the fifth year of training, as well as the relationship of these parameters with academic performance.

The paper analyzes the main approaches to educational career orientation, prevailing in Russian teacher-training and psychology. Educational career training of future experts is regarded as a measure and a way of creative self-actualization in various types of educational activities and teacher-training dialogue aimed at developing and creating educational technology and disclosing individual faculties.

Experimental studies were the basis of Chechen State Pedagogical Institute and the North Ossetian State Pedagogical Institute. The results of empirical research show that there are significant differences in the level of Educational career orientation of students: the lowest levels are had by the students of first and second years, and the peak falls on the third or fourth year. Indicators characterizing the prevailing types of Educational career orientation are similar: maximum expression of their career orientation is also characterized by the students of the third and fourth years, which allows to characterize this period as the key one in developing significant professional qualities. It is proved that there is a correlation level of career orientation and the academic performance of students: the high level of career orientation correlates with high performance. This relationship is typical for students at all grade levels, but is most pronounced in the third and fifth years.

The paper describes semantic structures of the teacher personality in the framework of the complete level theory of the personality by B. S. Bratus’ which has also more poetical naming, i.e. “the semantic vertical”. In this approach the personality of the teacher as a career professional is a special case of the personality organization in the psychological meaning where the main task is allocation of that concerns personality proper without identifying the teacher, the scholar or the doctor, but to the personality as to absolutely special psychological form.

In the semantic architecture of the teacher’s personality developed on the basis of psychological approach except the general sense of activity (e.g. “for the sake of what?”) the following semantic levels are identified:

• teacher’s attitude towards the student as to Another (to the Doppelgaener, the Interlocutor and the Person), 
• personal sense, reverberated in the teacher’s mind via the transformed image of the student, 
• dominance and “channels” of acquisition and response which distribute energy within teacher-student, 
• personal negentropy (negative entropy) allowing to speak about to what the teacher will do: depress or develop student’s personality.
  

The results of the empirical research with the group of teachers are described where the «Technique of studying semantic levels in the personality structure of the teacher» was used and the psychological portraits of teachers by the expert psychologists employed with educational institutions. 

The typology of semantic structures of the teacher in the “developing – reproducing – destructive” model is presented.

Shaping professional reflection of future teachers is of particular importance in the context of the modernization of the Russian education. However, despite the deep reflection of a problem in Russian pedagogical science the characteristics of development levels of pedagogical reflection among future teacher remains largely fragmented.

The paper deals with professional and pedagogical reflection as a process of perceiving essential features of educational process by a teacher, summarizes the main theoretical and methodological approaches to this issue. The research is aimed to identify and describe levels of professional and pedagogical reflection among students. The research is divided in several stages: the stage of theoretical allocation of substantial components of professional pedagogical reflection, the stage of selecting proper research tools, ascertaining stage, and concluding stage. The conceptual basis of the research is to identify the main components that determine the following features of professional and pedagogical reflection: motivational, creative, emotional volitional, communicative, monitoring and evaluative.

Based on the empirical results the levels of professional and pedagogical reflection of the students of the teacher-training specialties are identified. The first level is characterized by weak professional reflection and undifferentiated consciousness, self-awareness and self-esteem in the normal course of activities, the second level is associated with certain reflective activity and organization and is characterized by steady demand for professional and personal self-improvement. The indicator of the third level is high development of all components of professional reflection.

Psychological research of career life is usually devoted to individual choice of a career and career development. With the introduction of the concept of “career satisfaction”, and the definition of its types, components and factors into the scientific sphere, it is now possible to study the psychological characteristics and patterns of career satisfaction.The objective of the research is to reveal the psychological characteristics of career satisfaction in adulthood.

The sample comprises 100 adults from 25 to 45 years of various jobs (teacher, shop assistant, commercial director, freight handler, psychologist, journalist, etc.). The research revealed that among the participants the average level of job satisfaction is observed (63 per cent). High level of job satisfaction is found in 7 per cent of the participants. Low and very low levels of job satisfaction is typical for 30 per cent of the participants.

The comparison of the results in groups with different levels of job satisfaction in reference with the level of personal self-actualization (harmonious, adaptive and inert/ irrational) determines its basic indicators and identifies factors that allow career satisfaction, including both career-based and emotional ones. There are no significant differences in the content of career satisfaction in males and females.

Significant differences were obtained within different age groups for personal barriers, internality and sociocentrism. The statistical analysis also shows that within “person-symbol” qualified employees indicators of activity, vigor, and internality are higher.

The paper presents the results of a longitudinal research of personal traits of actor students of the Moscow Tabakov Theatre College. The research has been carried out since 2010 till the present yaer and is a continuation of the scientific program which began in 1976. The results of the research are based on Cattell’s 16 Personality Factors Test. The total number of participants is 312.

We discuss the gender influence on the enrollment peculiarities and student training in the Theatre College. Also we compared the Cattell’s test data of those participants who entered or failed to enter the Theatre College (males and females). We are comparing the distinctive features of males and females who entered the College. Using cluster analysis we consider peculiarities of the personality types of actor students who do the first year.

The obtained results show that teachers’ rates of males are more diverse in respect of direct and natural behaviour. However, female assessment of teachers is based on the appearance factor. Analysis of the personal data shows a reversal of trends in gender stereotypes. The cluster analysis based on the personal data according to Cattell’s 16 PF test for males who do the first year reveal seven cluster groups. Those groups include emotional, behavioural factors, and also group orientation of actor students.