EMPIRICAL STUDY OF THE STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF FUTURE PSYCHOLOGISTS’ PSYCHOLOGICAL READINESS TO PROVIDE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE TO FORMER COMBATANTS

Abstract

The article presents an empirical study of the psychological readiness of future psychologists to provide psychological assistance to former combatants. The aim of the study was to determine the levels of development of the communicative, emotional-volitional, and value-motivational components of psychological readiness among bachelor's and master's students in psychology and to conduct a comparative analysis between these groups. The study involved 150 psychology students from the National Aviation University, Taras Shevchenko Luhansk National University, and Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design. The sample consisted of two equal groups: 75 bachelor's students and 75 master's students. Empirical data were collected using Google Forms.

Empirical study. The study utilized a set of psychodiagnostic methods aimed at assessing the communicative, emotional-volitional, and value-motivational components of psychological readiness. In particular, the study examined motivational orientations in interpersonal communication, characteristics of behavioral self-regulation styles, levels of self-efficacy, systems of life values, professional motivation, and the structure of motivational complexes.

The conclusions summarize the study’s findings, which indicate that future psychologists with master’s degrees exhibit a higher level of development in all the examined components of psychological readiness compared to future psychologists with bachelor’s degrees. They demonstrate more developed communicative orientations, balanced self-regulation mechanisms, a more adequate level of self-efficacy, a predominance of intrinsic professional motivation, and a more mature system of professional values. At the same time, future bachelor’s-level psychologists were found to have insufficiently developed certain communicative characteristics, a situational-reactive style of self-regulation, overestimated self-efficacy, and a predominance of external motivation, which may complicate the effective provision of psychological assistance to former combatants.