Kondratenko L. Problems of primary poor progress at school in the history of Ukrainian psychology

The dissertation presents the results of a comprehensive analysis of the history of the emergence of modern views of Ukrainian psychologists on the features of primary poor progress at school, which is seen as a complex multifaceted phenomenon. In its emergence and development, the main role does not belong to an individual (even for very weighty reasons), but to the general reaction of the individual to a complex of diverse and multidirectional factors of influence that are both objective and subjective. The approach to historical psychological research proposed in the dissertation made it possible to characterize the specifics of the development of Ukrainian psychological thought in the period presented in the study, to identify the stages in the formation of modern views on the nature of primary poor progress at school, and to show the influence of political factors on the scientific process. The causes and consequences of the subordination of the analysis of purely scientific phenomena to current state of affairs both in imperial Russia and in the USSR were analysed. It was revealed that during the period of the inclusion of Ukrainian lands into the Russian Empire, the existence of the Ukrainian SSR in the USSR, and in independent Ukraine, Ukrainian psychologists stand out for their approaches to solving the problems of poor progress and for their increased interest in the personality of the child lagging behind in the studying. It was shown that primary poor progress at school cannot be reduced solely to academic failure. Academic failure is the most obvious, but not the only component of poor progress at school. Primary poor progress at school happens when emerges a complex of active negative factors including pedagogical, psychological, social and even physiological causes. The main danger of primary poor progress at school is not so much in the insufficient training of primary school children for study at the main school but in the formation of a deficit child personality. A person is devastated by a sense of inferiority, evaluates itself as a "failure person" unable to independently overcome not only educational but also life problems. The study the history of more than a century of struggle of Ukrainian psychologists and teachers with poor progress at school demonstrated that it is impossible to correct it exclusively by pedagogical methods. An analysis of the work of teachers, who achieved excellent results in overcoming academic failure of children, convincingly demonstrates that along with the application of absolutely different methods of training they have always (consciously or more often even unconsciously) widely used the mechanisms of psychological influence on their pupils. It was proved that an effective correction of primary poor progress at school is possible only if all the mechanisms that determine its occurrence and development are taken into account. It was shown that the current conditions for the rapid development of new information technologies, changes in social conditions of life, and the growing danger of military conflicts lead to the appearance of previously unrecoverable causes of primary poor progress at school. This fact even requires the restructuring of the entire teaching and upbringing process.