Koval I. Psychological features of students' conflicts in the process of cooperative learning activity.

In the thesis the reasonable grounds are provided for distinguishing conflicts which occur in the process of cooperative learning activity, as a separate kind of conflicts, i.e. classroom conflicts. Elucidated are the main types and causes of these conflicts, their features, patterns of students' behaviour in conflict situations, the ways of resolving conflicts, their impact on the process and result of cooperative learning activity, and the major psychological factors underlying this impact and determining its nature and relevant effects. It is found out that among factors, which determine whether the conflict will have constructive or destructive impact on the process of learning activity, crucial is the type of relations established between students before their involvement in cooperative activity. This follows from the fact that in the context of cooperative learning activity, the type of relations between the parties is mediating its arrangement. The aforementioned factors also include: the type of instructional task (its novelty, complexity, applicability of different solving strategies), means of assessment of the activity results, status of members of the group, homogeneous or heterogeneous structure of the group, and individual features of students. These factors determine whether the conflicts tend to have mainly constructive or destructive impact on the process and results of cooperative learning activity.