Methodological issues of measuring adaptation potential of a professional group: case study of teachers' community

Currently, in the system of education, the organization of the adaptation process, which, theoretically, should create opportunities for the transformation of teachers-conservators into innovators and prevent a reverse process, becomes particularly important. However, methodological basics for assessing the adaptation of teachers as a special professional scientific community have not been formed. The purpose of the study is the search and clarification of adaptation potential's assessment methodology that defines readiness of a professional group to work within changing environment. A definition of teachers' adaptation as a process of using certain development resources to form an image of a professionally successful teacher is clarified. Within the scientific tradition's generalization, two approaches of assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of social adaptation are identified: psychological (based on the usage of test tools and laboratory experiments); sociological (based on the usage of sociological tools and the generalization of primary data using the index method). The author conducted the operationalization of the “adaptation potential” concept and, on the basis onE. M. Avraamova's methodological approach, clarified the step-by-step method of its assessment for members of the teachers' community: from the collection of sociological data on the availability of certain adaptive resources to identifying groups of adaptants with strong, medium, and weak levels of adaptation potential. The application of the methodology for assessing adaptation potential of teachers will allow determining a degree of readiness of schools' pedagogical employees (all and certain categories of the teachers' community) for the government's turbulent educational policy. This methodology will be tested on data of the fourth wave of monitoring of the economic situation and social well-being of secondary schools' teachers in the Vologda Oblast. The results of the study may be used in research and project activities, as well as in the practice of education management.