Еmpathy in the structure of psychological competence of the teacher of the higher educational institution

Abstract

Background and Aim of Study: The efficiency of pedagogical activity depends not only of the level of professional knowledge and abilities of the teacher but also of the presence for him of the personality qualities necessary for optimal cooperation. One of such professionally-meaningful qualities of the teacher is the empathy able to do the process of education emotionally comfortable and productive. The aim of the study: to explore of level of empathy’s display of the teachers depending on experience of their pedagogical activity. Material and Methods: Theoretical (analysis and synthesis of the psychological literature); empirical (pilot study). 97 teachers of the higher educational institutions participated in the study; at the age of 27 to 62 years, with the work experience from 1 year to 30 years. Results. The results obtained indicate that the empathy is the important component in the structure of the professional competence of the teacher of the higher educational institution, and also that the empathic ability of the teacher is transformed with the development of life and professional experience. The empirical research shows the lowest rates of empathy among the teachers with the work experience of more than 25 years and among the young teachers with the work experience up to 10 years. Conclusions.It is concluded that there is the dependence of the empathy of professional experience, necessary to develop the empathy both at the stage of the training of the future teachers in the higher educational institutions and in the process of continuous professional education.