Maria Safronova

Maria Safronova

E-mail: mariasaf@gmail.com

The title of speech for school:

Pair Interaction between a Preschool Child and an Adult and a Peer in Problem Solving

Download (PDF; 755 KB)

I am a researcher of the Laboratory on Theoretical and Experimental problems of Culture-Historical Psychology at the MSUPE. From 2005 till 2009 I was an editorial secretary of the International Scientific Journal of Culture-Historical Psychology which is published by the MSUPE. I participated in the organization of the International Conference ‘Cultural-Historical Psychology: Modern Standing and Prospects’ which was held at the MSUPE (03 – 04 October 2006).  I’d participate in compilation of Culture-Historical dictionary.

My PhD entitled ‘Pair interaction between a preschool child and an adult and a peer in task-solving: Structure, content and efficiency’, it was completed recently on 29th April, 2010. My PhD supervisor was Boris Meshcheryakov, Ph.D. in Psychology, Head of the Psychology Chair Dubna International University of Nature, Society and Man (Dubna, Russia). Now I am waiting for the decision of the Highest Attestation Commission of Ministry of Science and Education of the Russian Federation.

Cultural-historical psychology studies the mental development of children, the laws of this development, the moving forces and conditions of their development. L.S.Vygotsky considered that the social environment is the source of development. He defined cooperation with other people as ‘a closer source of the development of internal individual properties of the child’s personality’ in his article ‘The Problem of Age’ (1934). Moreover L.S.Vygotsky developed the concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’ which allows us to see teaching as a moving force of the child’s mental development. We considered that collaboration is a way of joint activity with an adult which allows child to achieve the ideal form.

Nowadays educational system in Russia has overcome the changes which involve firstly a great increase of computer usage in school learning, and secondly the work out of new collaborative practice at school where the central part of the learning process is a child’s educational collaboration with an adult and a peer. Preschool children have a task to acquire the tools and methods of joint activity.

We were interested how preschool children use speech and interventions (in Russian it is ‘help’) as tools for managing their joint activity in task-solving.

Currently Maria Damianova (Monash University), Inna Korepanova (PhD, the secretary of the Russian ISCAR Section) and I are doing a research on private speech (egocentric speech) and individual development, on language-mediated problem solving in situations of adult and peer collaboration.

I would like to improve my experience in the Cultural-Historical and Activity Theory to follow these ideas in my research. Also I would like to meet young scientists who are interested in this theme.

Maria Safronova “Pair Interaction between a Preschool Child and an Adult and a Peer in Problem Solving”