Integrative approach to the assessment of abilities: results of research of students and teachers

The author of the article presents the results of an empirical study of the abilities of primary school students and adolescence. In the process of research, in addition to identifying the features of children's self-assessment of abilities and assessing their abilities by experts, the problem of integrating the results into educational activities, organizing cooperation between psychologists and teachers in the process of studying and further developing the abilities of students was solved. The main research methods were the author's method of self-assessment of abilities, developed and tested on the basis of the method of studying self-esteem by Dembo-Rubinstein, as well as the author's method of expert assessment by teachers and psychologists of students’ abilities. As a result of the analysis of statistical data of self-reported and expert assessments of abilities of different age children, the author received important patterns. Attention is drawn to the fact that the areas of ability in which the significance of differences between expert and self-reported indicators is noted (primary school age children – an artistic sphere, a musical sphere, a motor sphere, a sphere of communication and leadership; adolescents – a sphere of academic achievements and a literary sphere), are more associated with the individual activities of students, most often outside the school, since educational activity does not imply a systematic manifestation of these areas among schoolchildren. This result is focused on a comprehensive study of all areas of students’ abilities by psychologists and teachers, as well as the introduction of multi-directional methods of research and development of abilities in educationalactivities, which, of course, determines the importance and need for cooperation of school specialists in the development of students’ abilities.