Graphical competence as a part of professional competence of future programmers technicians

The task of professional competence forming is connected with the shift of our economy into a market one as well as with the changes of the educational purposes which caused the introduction of new educational standards. Special attention is given to the forming of graphical competence. The level of graphical competence strongly influences the process of knowledge acquisition in special disciplines and contributes to the greater efficiency of future professional activity. Thus, there is a need in working out the methods of forming of the future programmer graphical competence. Moreover, the importance of the research is justified by the aggravated contradiction between the employers’ demand for a high level of graphical competence of graduates and insufficient efficiency of pedagogical technology used to form graphical competence at technical college. Thus, the problem of the research is formulated in the form of a question: what should the educational process aimed to train the graduates able to solve professional tasks be like? The paper aims to find the rationale for graphical competence forming and to describe the ascertaining experiment organized for determining the level of graphical competence of technical college graduates. The methods used are оbservation, testing, survey, evaluation of students’ graphical works, analysis of the literature. The components of the graphical competence of future programming technicians were determined; the criteria to determine the level of graphical competence were identified; the ascertaining experiment to evaluate the level of the graphical competence was carried out and the ways to increase the efficiency of graphical competence forming were offered. The components of the graphical competence of future programming technicians were identified; the criteria to determine the level of graphical competence were worked out; the proficiency scale for graphical competence was offered. The criteria identified can be used in the educational process to define the level of graphical competence.