Structural regularities of reflexive determination of management activity in education

Introduction. The paper reveals the problem of the determinants of labor activity in education, the factors which determine its effectiveness and reliability, as well as social and humanitarian effects. The purpose of the article is to identify and interpret the main structural laws of the reflexive determination of management activity in education environment. Materials and Methods. An empirical research to identify and explain the relationship between the individual level of development of reflexivity and effectiveness of leader’s activity in an educational setting was carried out at two main and complementary levels. Firstly, it is the implementation of the analytical level of research aimed at identifying the effectiveness of management activity in educational system from the general level of reflexivity. Secondly, it is the implementation of the structural level of research aimed at identifying the features and patterns of structural organization of reflection as a complex determinant of management activity. At the second level the set of basic research and psychometric techniques developed in modern metacognitivism are applied, as well as a number of authors’ methods. The method of expert evaluation was also used. Results. The paper presents a number of new data and laws, which have not been described in previous studies, revealing and explaining a fairly general pattern, consisting in the existence of inverted U-shaped dependence (that is, the dependence of the "optimum type") between the individual measure of reflexivity development and effectiveness of management activity in education. It is shown that the main explanatory mechanism is the natural dynamics of the structural organization of reflexivity itself in the educational setting, which consists in changing the degree of integration and differentiation of the main metacognitive processes and qualities. The main results are presented in the form of structuregrams and graphs. Conclusions. On the basis of the results, the authors propose and substantiate general interpretation of the revealed regularities. All the effects of the "organizational" plan and structure-forming character are the result of integrative mechanisms and synergetic effects. They lead to the formation of a special category of qualities. These are system qualities. As a result, managerial activity of a leader in an educational setting and natural superadditivity effects are generated. Their meaning is to "go beyond" the simple sum of functional potential and characteristics of the integrated components.