Social-psychological training as a tool to foster communicative competency of students specialising in management

Introduction: communicative competency serves as the basis for individual development of students specialising in management as well as a factor of successful managerial career. The implementation of competency-oriented approach in education and modern requirements of the labour market provide for the relevance of fostering communicative competency including its psychological features such as communication knowledge and skills. The specific trait of the author's approach in the research is a shift from psychological characteristics diagnosis of communicative competencies to their amelioration through social psychological training of students specialized in management. The aim of the research is to elaborate, verify and assess the training programme effectiveness in forming psychological traits of communicative competencies. The article might be of interest for trainers and high school staff, students, specialists in human resources departments of various organisations. Materials and Methods: the research includes the following steps: choosing the testees, selecting diagnostic methodology to identify the level of communication knowledge and skills, pre-testing, elaborating the training programme of communicative competency, getting feed-back from the testees on completing the programme, post-testing diagnostics, comparing the results of testing before and after the training, drawing conclusions. Results: the prospect of formation of students-managers' preparedness to manage the dynamic correlation of communicative knowledge, abilities, and skills for future professional activity in management students is substantiated. As a result of diagnostics, better knowledge acquisition, higher values of indicators and higher level of development of communicative abilities were revealed. An original author's approach was proposed. The distinctive feature of this method was the transition from the diagnostics of psychological characteristics of communicative competences to their enhanced qualities through socio-psychological training. Discussion and Conclusion: students' participation in the training had positive influence on their communicative competency and its psychological components. Further development of the training programme implies more exercises on self-presentation and in-conflict behaviour, as well as shaping the readiness to manage dynamic balance of communicative knowledge, skills, capabilities in future professional activities of students specialised in management. This programme might become an integral part of university education programmes for students specialising in management.