Strategies of university teachers’ professional behavior: Typological features of the organization and perception of moral educational activities

Introduction. The article examines the current problem of developing an empirically verifiable typology of academic staff in charge of moral education, necessary for the effective design of educational procedures and professional development of university teachers. The purpose of the study is to develop a typology of academic staff based on the analysis of the organizational characteristics and the nature of moral educational activities perception. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study is the competence, activity-based, system and socio-cultural approaches, which enable to comprehensively study the phenomenon of a university teacher in charge of moral education, identify the main types and specifics of their educational functions. The study is based on theoretical (analysis, comparison, generalization, systematization) and empirical (questionnaires, projective techniques, self-assessment scales) methods, as well as methods of statistical data processing (descriptive statistics, cluster analysis using the K-means method, Kruskal-Wallis H-test, ranking based on the frequency of occurrence of the variables studied). The sample included 72 university teachers (17 male and 55 female) aged between 24 and 76 years (M = 47.6; SD = 10.9). Results. The authors analyzed and summarized the studies of Russian and international researchers devoted to the issues of moral education of students, systematized knowledge about the typology of academic staff in charge of moral education, and presented the empirical results of the study. In the course of the empirical study, five types were identified that reflect the features of the organization and nature of the perception of moral educational activities by university teachers: “Value Guide”, “Supporting Comrade”, “Stronghold of Norms and Rules”, “Keeper of Knowledge”, “Experienced Professional”. The article presents the characteristics of each type, identifies and analyzes the main potentials and difficulties that higher education teachers may encounter in the process of implementing moral educational activities. Conclusions. Based on the obtained results, it was established that the image of a university teacher in charge of moral education is heterogeneous: the identified clusters differ significantly in approaches, tools and strategies for interacting with students, which indicates a multiplicity of professional roles and practices in a single educational space. Reliance on the identified types of academic staff will enable to build a more flexible system of moral educational work, vary the formats of interaction and design individual trajectories for supporting teachers, taking into account the characteristics of the relevant groups.