Assessing the competence of teachers in developing a culture of safety in children of preschool and primary school age (in English)

Research participants: educators from preschool educational organizations participating in the Russian country-wide experimental program “Mechanisms for implementing FSES based on L.G. Peterson’s activity method from the standpoint of continuity of education Preschool – Primary School – Secondary School” at the Center for System-Activity Pedagogy “School 2000...” of the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution “Academy for Advanced Training and Professional Retraining of Education Workers”; teachers from primary schools of the Regional Innovation Platform “Formation of safety culture among primary school students in extracurricular activities” at the State Budgetary Educational Institution “Institute for Education De- velopment”. The total number of participants is over 4,000 people, educators from the Republics of Tatarstan and Udmurtia, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Distric, Krasnodar Krai, Perm Krai, Astrakhan Region, Belgorod Region, Vladimir Region, Vologda Region, Moscow Region, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Oryol Region, Ryazan Region, Samara Region, Sverdlovsk Region, Tver Region, Tomsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region.

The focus group consisted of 182 education system workers – heads of educational organizations, preschool teachers, primary school teachers, educators in additional education, school psychologists, social educators; more than 3500 educational workers were directly studiedfor theirlevel of professional competence 57 from preschool educational organizations and 29 from schools.

Duration of the study: 2016–2022.

Research methods: survey (based on the author’s questionnaire “Children’s Safety. Teacher’s Competence” [5]), analysis of the conditions for organizing educational activities in the environment (based on “Educational Environment Safety Assessment Cards” [5]), interviews, analysis of viewed pedagogical events, notes , pedagogical documentation, statistical analysis of the data obtained and their interpretation.

Search and analytical stage of the study. A set of criteria was assessed to ensure the effectiveness of the implementation of educational programs aimed at creating an individual safety culture. Among such conditions are the federal state educational standards (hereinafter referred to as the Federal State Educational Standard) for preschool and primary general education highlight personnel, psychological and pedagogical, material and technical, information and methodological conditions and resources. Let us present some results of the analysis.

When assessing the material and technical conditions in all educational organizations that took part in the study, various violations of physical safety requirements were recorded (furniture characteristics, playground surfaces, play equipment, lack of safety devices – locks for doors, sockets, anti-slip coatings in showers etc.). In the developing subject-spatial environment, educational resources are not provided to support the formation and understanding of the experience of safely performing various operations, actions that are relevant for each age stage, to develop a value attitude towards safety [5].

Most schools and preschool educational institutions do not have formal, methodological and didactic materials for training in the field of life safety that comply with the current Federal State Educational Standards for preschool or primary general education. Not all schools have developed a “Program for the formation of an environmental culture, a healthy and safe lifestyle”; the plans for implementing this program include the bare minimum of topics related to safety issues. There are rare examples of schools implementing extracurricular activity programs that include issues of human and environmental safety, carrying out diagnostic activities that make it possible to see the dynamics of student results in the area of study under consideration.

The plans for the educational activities of all kindergartens included safety classes (up to 10 per year), training activities to practice actions in emergency situations,and in some preschool educational institutions for senior preschool age it was planned to conduct conversations and entertainment on relevant topics. In the work programs, planning, lesson notes, there is no reflection of the objectives of the sections related to training in the field of life safety of the educational field “Social and communicative development”, stated in the POP of preschool education, in the comprehensive programs used in these preschool educational institutions. As part of the ongoing diagnostics of learning effectiveness, some preschool educational institutions presented separate questions related to knowledge in the field of safety [5]. There are no analytical materials on the results of ongoing pedagogical activities.

Familiarity with the information and methodological conditions for the implementation of educational programs in educational organizations allows us to document the expansion of the range of educational resources used for training in the field of life safety. At the same time, there are numerous violations of information, physical and psychological safety requirements, inconsistency of the content used with the age characteristics of children, and its low developmental effect.

One of the important psychological and pedagogical conditions for the effectiveness of educational activities (including in the field of safety) is the implementation of the principle of continuity at the levels of preschool and primary general education. Our analysis of the Federal State Educational Standards of two levels, program documents regarding the content, methods and results of training and education, methodological and didactic manuals used by educational organizations showed the presence of “interdisciplinary topics” (many of which are not yet relevant for preschool children and younger schoolchildren), the unity of forms and methods of teaching (meaning the lack of consideration of the age characteristics of preschool children and students at the non-school level, the patterns of socialization processes, the leading mechanisms of incultur-ation at different age periods, methodological recommendations for the implementation of the content of the educational field “Social and communicative development”).

A number of the problems discussed above are related to the state of the personnel for the implementation of educational programs. The key issues here include the insufficiently high level of safety culture of adult participants in educational relations (heads of educational organizations, teachers, parents (legal representatives) of students) and their competence (professional or parental) in matters of ensuring the safety of children and introducing them to a culture of safety. The relevance of improving the safety culture and competence of adult participants in educational relations is determined by the following requirements

• •    the competence of teachers and parents in ensuring the safety of students is most significant at the levels of preschool and primary general education, since children are not able to ensure their own safety;

• •    the level of adults’ own safety culture is of utmost importance for the successful introduction of children to the culture, since the main mechanisms of enculturation in the periods under discussion are identification with a significant adult and imitation of him;

• •    it is important to coordinate the positions and consolidate the efforts of the family and the educational organization (with the leading role of the family) to ensure the safety of children and their education in the relevant field;

• •    to ensure the survival of the state (and humanity as a whole), a necessary condition is to improve the safety culture of society in all respects a value-based attitude towards one’s own safety and the safety of surrounding people and nature; knowledge and competence of safe behavior [2, p. 8].

The significance of the competence of teachers as referents of safety culture, whose behavior and activities are imitated by children, whose assessment of their own activities is oriented by preschoolers and primary schoolchildren, actualizes the search for approaches to training and assess-

ОЦЕНКА КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ ПЕДАГОГОВ В ВОПРОСАХ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ КУЛЬТУРЫ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ У ДЕТЕЙ ДОШКОЛЬНОГО И МЛАДШЕГО ШКОЛЬНОГО ВОЗРАСТА ing the readiness of teachers at the levels of education we are considering to ensure various aspects of student safety, to develop their safety culture. We have studied the practice of preparing future teachers to ensure the safety of children and to organize training in the area under discussion [6], and we have developed and tested diagnostic methods for assessing the professional competence of current teachers in this area.

The level of development of the problem. In global pedagogical thought, the understanding of the need to train teachers to ensure the safety of students and to educate them in this area was formed in the 1920s (K. Licht, G. Spencer, . Stack, M. Errousmith, V. ill, and others). In Russia, the first attempts to develop a concept of training teachers in life safety are associated with the beginning of the 21st century (A.V. Matveev, V.V. Gafner). Various definitions of the professional competence of future teachers in life safety are presented in the studies (V.G. Bubnov, V.V. Gafner, L.A. Mikhailov, V.N. Moshkin, N.K. Smirnov, A.S. Tankenov, M.V. Trunov). For subject teachers, primary school teachers, and preschool teachers, there are currently no defined requirements for competence in ensuring the safety of students and their involvement in a culture of safety, as well as criteria for its assessment. (An exception is the work of S.N. Pidruch-naya [3], which highlighted a set of in-depth knowledge of traffic rules as necessary for teachers.)

In the Federal State Educational Standards for igher Education, approved on February 22, 2018, in the direction of “Pedagogical Education,” among the universal competencies of graduates, the ability to “create and maintain safe living conditions, including in emergency situations” is highlighted [4, p. 8]. This requirement is specified in the main educational programs in the direction of training 44.03.01 “Pedagogical Education.” The study of the main professional educational programs of higher education (bachelor’s programs) of different educational organizations does not allow us to see a system for training future teachers in ensuring the safety of students; requirements for graduates related to the discussed sphere of activity [6].

Research results. In order to determine the effectiveness of preparing future teachers to ensure the safety of students and their education, as well as the competence of practicing specialists, we conducted an assessment of the competencies of graduates of higher education institutions at the initial stage of their professional activities and teachers with more than five years of experience. Based on the analysis of various scientific approaches to describing pedagogical competence, the practical activities of teachers in implementing educational tasks in the field of safety, and the content of the professional standard “Teacher” (pedagogical activities in preschool, primary general, basic general, and secondary general education), we have developed a description of the professional competence of teachers in ensuring safety and shaping a culture of safetyfor children of preschool and primary school age

• necessary knowledge the specifics of shaping a culture of safety for children of preschool (primary school) age at different stages based on cultural and activity approaches; the role of various types of activities and forms of organization in shaping a culture of safety; modern trends in the development of education for preschoolers (primary school children) in the field of safety;

• work actions participation in creating a safe and psychologically comfortable educational environment in educational organizations (including the information sphere), ensuring the safety of children’s lives; planning and implementing educational activities to shape a culture of safety in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standards for preschool (primary general) education; conducting pedagogical monitoring of the formation of a culture of safety; participation in planning and adjusting relevant educational tasks in collaboration with other participants in educational re- lationships; developing professionally significant competencies necessary to solve tasks related to shaping a culture of safety;

• required skills: being able to organize various types of activities taking into account the tasks of ensuring the safety of children and training in the field of life safety; select and apply the most effective methods of supporting enculturation processes at different age periods in accordance with the individual characteristics of children; build partnerships with parents (legal representatives) of children to create a culture of safety [5].

To assess the competence of teachers based on the requirements of the professional standard “Teacher”, we developed a questionnaire. Examples of questions aimed at teachers’ self-assessment of necessary knowledge “Choose the most accurate definition of the concept of “safety culture.” What sources of danger and threats to preschool children that have emerged in recent decades could you name? Give 2-3 examples that are most relevant, in your opinion. What can cause a violation of the psychological safety of preschool children? What could be a factor in violating information security standards for preschoolers?”

Examples of tasks for self-assessment of work actions “Do you take part in creating a safe and psychologically comfortable educational environment in kindergarten? (Yes/No.) Give 2-3 examples of your participation in creating a safe educational environment or explain why you are not participating in this work. Do you take part in efforts to ensure children’s information security? (Yes/No.) Give 2-3 examples of your participation in creating a secure information environment or explain why you are not participating in this work. Do you plan and implement educational activities to create a safety culture and the prerequisites for an information culture? (Yes/No.) Give 2-3 examples of your participation in the planning and implementation of educational activities to create a safety culture, prerequisites for an information culture.”

Teachers were also asked to rate their professional skills on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is the absence of a skill, and 10 is the highest level of its development. The following skills were highlighted ability to analyze objects of the educational environment, identify potential threats; organize various activities taking into account the objectives of ensuring the safety of children and education in the field of life safety; carry out examination of information products for children; select and apply the most effective methods of introducing children to culture at different age periods in accordance with the individual characteristics of students; build partnerships with children’s parents in matters of ensuring the safety of pupils, etc. [5].

Three levels of professional competence were identified and described • insufficient the teacher has scattered, not always objective ideas on the issues of ensuring the safety and education of children of preschool (primary school) age in this area; does not perform labor actions aimed at increasing the level of safety and activating potential of the educational environment, creating a culture of safety among students; does not possess the skills necessary to carry out effective work in this direction;

• •    suffi cient the teacher has separate objective ideas on the issues of ensuring the safety and education of children of preschool (primary school) age in this area; carries out individual work actions aimed at increasing the level of safety and activating potential of the educational environment, creating a culture of safety among students; possesses the individual skills necessary to carry out effective work in this direction;

• •    advanced the teacher has formed a system of objective ideas on issues of ensuring the safety and education of preschool (primary school) children in this area; the teacher performs basic work actions aimed at increasing the level of safety and activating potential of the educational environment, creating a culture of safety among students; has the basic skills necessary

to carry out effective work in this direction [5].

The analysis of the results of determining the level of professional competence of teaching staffwas carried out taking into account their belonging to a certain category place of residence, age, work experience at a given level of education, the presence of appropriate professional education, level of education (secondary or higher), qualification category, presence or absence of work experience in conditions of innovative activity. Teachers of the experimental and control groups who participated in testing the author’s Concept for the formation of a safety culture in children of preschool and primary school age were allocated to a special category. For them, the survey was personalized and included two repetitions ascertaining and final. Below we present data from a comparative analysis of changes in the level of professional competence of six categories of study participants preschool teachers (Table 1) and primary school teachers (Table 2), who formed the control group (CG – a), experimental groups working in traditional conditions – those who did not undergo training according to the author’s advanced training programs(EG – b) and in the conditions of an adaptive pedagogical system [7] (EG’ – c).

Tables reflect the frequency values obtained as a result of all diagnostic measures conducted for each category of teachers. In order to compare the results obtained in the compared samples (CG, EG, and EG’), the criterion φ* – Fisher’s angular transformation was used based on the frequency of occurrence of the effects considered (improving the level of evaluated indicators). According to the table of critical values of the Fisher criterion (at a level of statistical significance of p <0.05), the critical value of the φ* criterion for all groups (CG, EG, and EG’) is 2.5. According to the automated calculation during the diagnostic stage, the following φ* values were obtained for preschool teachers knowledge – 2.38; skills – 2.37; work actions – 2.46. These data in- dicate the identity of groups of different categories (differences in the evaluated indicators are statistically insignificant), the legitimacy of comparing results, and the effectiveness of teacher training programs. At the end of the training, empirical φ* values were higher than critical ones (knowledge – 2.81; skills – 2.67; work actions – 2.64). Thus, the differences between the control and experimental groups are statistically significant. Similar results were obtained when comparing the results of EG and EG’, all groups of primary school teachers.

Calculations were made for each component of professional competence necessary knowledge, work actions, necessary skills. Full correct answers in the “knowledge” and “work actions” categories were evaluated at 3 points, inaccurate and incomplete ones at 1–2 points, incorrect answers and lack of answers at 0 points. In the “skills” section, the number of points for the answer corresponded to the respondent’s assessment. The number of points from 0 to 40 % of the maximum possible indicates an insufficient level of professional competence, 41–70 % indicates a sufficient level, and 71–100 % indicates an advanced level.

The analysis of the survey results showed a number of problems in providing personnel conditions for the implementation of educational programs in preschool and primary education, as well as the presence of pronounced professional deficits among teachers in the studied area. Only 33% of respondents gave correct answers to questions assessing their knowledge. Teachers experienced significant difficulties when answering questions about choosing effective approaches to ensuring the safety of preschool children and teaching in this area; about the reasons and consequences of violating psychological and information security requirements; about the role of various types of activities in shaping a culture of safety; about modern trends in the development of education for preschoolers (primary school children) in the field of safety; about compon-

ОЦЕНКА КОМПЕТЕНТНОСТИ ПЕДАГОГОВ В ВОПРОСАХ ФОРМИРОВАНИЯ КУЛЬТУРЫ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ У ДЕТЕЙ ДОШКОЛЬНОГО И МЛАДШЕГО ШКОЛЬНОГО ВОЗРАСТА

Table 1

Dynamics of the level of professional competence of teachers preschool education

Level	Evaluation parameters. Group categories. Number of respondents
	Knowledge			Skills			Work activities
	СG	EG	EG’	СG	EG	EG’	СG	EG	EG’
I	72/68	74/32	74/22	82/78	77/41	69/21	75/71	70/31	75/19
S	24/27	23/52	22/46	14/16	19/45	25/42	22/25	25/48	20/50
A	4/5	3/16	4/32	4/6	4/14	6/37	3/4	5/21	5/31

Table 2

Dynamics of the level of professional competence of primary general education teachers

Level	Evaluation parameters. Group categories. Number of respondents
	Knowledge			Skills			Work activities
	СG	EG	EG’	СG	EG	EG’	СG	EG	EG’
I	66/61	71/34	68/8	72/65	70/31	65/18	80/71	68/28	77/19
S	28/33	25/48	26/57	23/29	27/48	28/42	17/25	28/41	16/50
A	6/6	4/18	6/35	5/6	3/21	7/40	3/4	4/31	7/31

* The numbers (in percentage) of teachers who showed results corresponding to insufficient (I), sufficient (S) and advanced (A) levels of professional competence at the ascertaining and final stages of the study are indicated through a slash.

ents of safety culture that cannot be formed without the participation of families of students. Most teachers (77 %) are not familiar with modern approaches to implementing the considered direction of education and upbringing, with basic regulatory documents regulating the activities of an educational organization in ensuring the safety of students, have difficulty providing examples of new sources of danger that appeared at the end of the XX century, explaining the essence of related threats, and arguing the need to educate children in safety.

Many participants in the study (64 %) noted that they effectively perform the following work actions participating in creating a safe and psychologically comfortable educational environment in an educational organization, ensuring the safety of children’s lives. At the same time, only a few (7 %) provided objective examples of them performing corres- ponding work actions. The number of respondents who answered positively to questions about performing other designated work functions did not exceed 15 %.

Conclusions. The analysis of the data obtained during the study allowed us to draw a number of conclusions

• •    similar initial results were obtained in groups of respondents with identical compositions for all indicators;

• •    there were no significant changes in the control groups in the studied parameters, as most of the analyzed training, retraining, and professional development programs for teachers do not include themes related to the safety of the educational environment and teaching safety skills;

• •    significant differences were observed within the group of teachers who did not undergo training for the implementation of the innovative pro-

• ject. The significant growth of selected indicators among teachers who implemented programs aimed at forming a culture of safety in students can be explained by the presence of a brief introductory course, the provision of conceptual, programmatic, methodological, and didactic materials in experimental educational organizations, and the acquisition of necessary knowledge, skills, and work actions directly in the process of professional activity;

• •    the greatest growth in the number of teachers who transitioned to higher levels of professional competence was observed in the conditions of an adaptive pedagogical system, where targeted training on the topic of the innovative project was provided;

• •    significant differences were observed between experienced and novice teachers. This is due to the fact that in the training programs for future teachers, issues related to ensur-

• ing the safety of children and teaching in this area are often presented frag-mentarily, outside of a unified system, in different sections of academic disciplines. Only competencies related to ensuring the safety of students are considered universal, and questions related to teaching in this area are usually not reflected in the competencies being formed and are not included in the final certification;

• •    there were no stable correlations between the increase in the level of professional competence and the affiliation of respondents to other categories (level of education, qualification category, experience in innovative activities, etc.). The highest results were shown by teachers who showed

the greatest interest in the project, chose a creative level of mastering additional professional programs for study, and actively worked as part of the council of the experimental (innovative) platform;

• •    the results of the surveys showed that the improvement in indicators among individual teachers in control groups is associated with a number of factors the educational nature of diagnostic materials, their motivating possibilities (respondents developed a professional interest in the problem, which became a factor in engaging in various forms of self-education); in-house training; personal interest (for example, parental), self-education;

• •    the presence of higher initial indicators among elementary school teachers than among preschool teachers may be due to the absence of a significant number of preschool teachers with relevant specialized education.

The obtained results formed the basis for determining the thematic focus of training programs (selfeducation) for teachers, choosing forms of organizing educational activities,and became the basis for building models of interaction among participants in educational relationships in the process of shaping a culture of safety for children of preschool and primary school age.