Psychogological aspects of perception and understanding of teachers by university students

Introduction: the paper is concerned with the problem of increasing the quality of training processes at the university. One of the ways is to increase the efficiency of educational dialogue in the system "teacher - student". The paper presents a theoretical analysis of the problem of communication and interpersonal understanding. The authors highlight the basic functions of the other person's image and his/her connection with the content of the joint activity. Materials and Methods: the authors used a technique of a free reference for solution of the problem along with application of the method of content analysis and several statistical methods. Sense bearing judgement serves as a unit of analysis that reflects some psychological qualities of a teacher. The study was carried out on the basis of National Research Mordovia State University. 100 students of humanities and natural science specialities took part in this survey: 50 people in each group. Results: the analysis of judgements allowed to define the essential components of a teacher's image: wide-ness, content and structure. On average students highlight seven qualities in teachers. This tells of a low level of psychological competence. Humanities students have better results than students of natural science and technical specialties. The students perceive the teacher as a whole person. The content of the image includes not only professional skills, but also traits of character, temperament, behaviour and appearance. The analysis allowed to reveal the differences in the image of a teacher based on opinions of humanities students against technical specialties students. Differences in the perception of teacher's image among students of Russian and Mordovian ethnicity were not found. Discussion and Conclusions: the practical significance of the study - ideas of modern students about a good teacher will lay foundation for determining the directions of teacher professional development.