Development of conflict management competency in social work undergraduate students

Introduction. The authors study the problem of preparing social work undergraduate students for professional practice. The purpose of the article is to identify the possibility of developing conflict management competency in social work undergraduate students by means of implementing the system of educational interventions designed by the authors. Materials and Methods. The methodological approaches to the study include systemic, problem and activity-based, competence-based, holistic, and informational ones. The authors apply the following methods: questionnaires, essays, surveys, educational tests, studying activity products; as well as analysis and synthesis of scientific literature on the problem of developing conflict management competency within higher education system. Results. Having analyzed various approaches to studying conflict management competency, the authors revealed that this phenomenon had not been properly investigated, especially in the field of education. The authors defined the terms of “students' conflict management competency” and “developing students' conflict management competency”. A system of educational interventions aimed at developing social work undergraduate students' conflict management competency has been proposed, which is based on methodological approaches and principles. The authors have revealed and defined educational factors for the components of students' conflict management competency and describe structural components and stages of the proposed system. A system of measures of students' conflict management competency is presented. The results of an experimental study on the introduction of the proposed system into the university educational process are described. Conclusions. The authors summarize the theoretical analysis of developing students' conflict management competency and present the results of the educational interventions system aimed at developing social work undergraduate students' conflict management competency.