The dissertation theoretically substantiates the main approaches to study of the problem of educational motivation of senior preschoolers through the prism of behavior, adaptation to new conditions in the micro-society, cognitive and volitional processes, communication. It has been found that motivation has a social origin and develops in ontogenesis as a result of specially directed formative actions, while motivation is mediated by cognitive processes, communication and is carried out with the help of the volitional processes.
It has been theoretically proven that educational motivation plays an extremely important role in the older preschool age of a child because new opportunities for the development of mental qualities, personal growth, etc. are revealed during this period. The children develop a motive for achieving success, develop the ability to set goals and achieve them, and actualize their potential in the preschool period. There is also a transformation of the child's external motivation into an internal one (achievement motivation), taking into account the psychological patterns of shifting the motive to the goal and fixing the attitude.
On the basis of theoretical generalization, the study identified learning motives, which include: cognitive (related to the content or structural characteristics of the educational activity itself); social (related to factors affecting learning motives and not related to educational activities); achievement. The theoretical and methodological analysis of the problem of educational motivation of senior preschoolers made it possible to identify the components of educational motivation: dynamic, cognitive, evaluative and positional.
It is theoretically substantiated that cognitive development disorders in children are caused immaturity and slow development of motor skills, mental functions, including perception, memory, attention and thinking, which causes lagging and difficulties in mastering educational and cognitive information.
It has been determined that these characteristics are present in children who exhibit the following features:
- They have impairments related to the deficit development of cognitive activity regulation function, despite relatively preserved intelligence. The main manifestations of these impairments include attention problems (both hyperactivity and hypoactivity), underdeveloped motivational and emotional-volitional sphere, as well as disorders of arbitrary nature to varying degrees.
- They demonstrate uneven manifestations of cognitive activity and productivity, manifested in differences between the level of intellectual development and the level of educability. This means that in some cases, children may have underdeveloped intelligence (for example, limited knowledge and perceptions of the surrounding world, undeveloped mental actions and operations, lag in the development of visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking, speech, etc.).
- Some children may combine a low level of intellectual productivity with excessively weak cognitive activity, which means that insufficient intellectual development is the result of limited learning ability.
- These children may have a deficit in the development of all mental functions, including attention, memory, gnosis, praxis, and others. In addition, underdevelopment of the emotional-volitional sphere may be noted.
Theoretical conclusions suggest that cognitive development disorders can be manifested in delayed mental development, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, mild intellectual disabilities, speech disorders, etc.
It has been found that the educational motivation of senior preschoolers with disorders of cognitive development is formed insufficiently, its development is very slow and characterized by peculiar features. There is a violation of the following motivational characteristics: dynamic (manifested in a low need for learning, lack of stability of motives, low degree of arousal of motives, inability to switch from one motive to another); cognitive (characterized by a negative attitude to learning, unformed educational and cognitive motives, etc.); evaluative and positional (inconsistency between the educational motive and the aspirations of the child, which affects various types of activity and communication), which in the future creates significant difficulties in the learning process.
In order to form educational motivation in senior preschoolers with cognitive impairments, a model of the school situation in the conditions of a preschool educational institution was developed, which contained the same elements as the classical full-time form of education, namely: subjects and objects, stages of educational situations (organizational and motivational, operational, control and evaluative, reflective, corrective and developmental), and the ultimate goal.
