THE FEATURES OF PRE-SCHOOL AND PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN’S VALUE FORMATION PROCESS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR WORLDVIEWS

Value orientations are reflected in a child’s worldview. Scientists have a common opinion that a person’s worldview begins to be formed in childhood. The key purpose of the study was to analyze the data received from a survey of senior pre-school and primary-school age children with the help of an interview "Factors of a child’s choice of socially significant values", describe the features of a value formation process and measure the levels of pre-school and primary-school children’s worldviews. The structural and dynamic qualitative characteristics of “value orientations” system were represented by the unity of its components: 1) cognitive; 2) emotional; 3) behavioral. The sample consisted of children from various regions of Ukraine. The following levels were distinguished in our research based on the manifested qualitative characteristics of worldviews: a formed picture of the world (the high level); expressed worldviews (the above average one); existing worldviews (the average level); limited worldviews (the below average one); fragmentary worldviews (the low level). The data showed that the majority of Ukrainian preschool and primary-school children had the high and above-average levels of worldview formation. We analyzed emotional, cognitive, and behavioral manifestations of children’s worldviews and generalized characteristics typical for children groups formed based on the levels of worldview formation.