The role of social and humanities disciplines in professional training of natural science specialists

Abstract

The article is devoted to the role of social and humanities disciplines in the training of natural science specialists.

It is determined that not only professional knowledge, skills, and competence must be formed in the process of professional training of any specialist, but also personal qualities in general, and professional ones in particular. A significant role in the formation of a natural science specialist-to-be personality is due to social and humanities education.

Scientific papers of the researchers who analyzed general problems of social and humanities training of non-humanities specialists are analyzed. Scientists define the main goal of social and humanities training as the development of social and personal competencies based on fundamental humanity knowledge, emotional values, and social and creative experience which are aimed at improving the moral, ethical, intellectual, creative, and civic qualities of the individual.

The role and place of disciplines of the social and humanities sciences in the professional training of natural science specialist in the context of the reform of higher education in Ukraine and introduction of the self-government of universities are analyzed.

The main problems that arise during the teaching social and humanities disciplines to specialists-to-be in the natural sciences are revealed and analyzed. These problems are: the problem of students’ motivation; the specificity of student’s thinking; misunderstanding of the problematic nature of some humanities disciplines; inability to work with sources of information; near complete ignorance of humanitarian terminology; traditional forms of training which do not meet the new needs of practice.

The reasons concerning the importance of changing the approaches how to teach social and humanities sciences which lie in deepening and reorientation of cooperation between research-pedagogical staff of the humanities and natural science disciplines are given. Such cooperation should be implemented in different forms: joint scientific and methodological conferences, tutorial workshops, competitions in humanities disciplines with the involvement of students of natural sciences; binary lectures, trainings, business games, discussions, debates, and round tables; the development of new curricula, integrated courses, the use of information and communication, distance learning technologies in the educational process.