CURRENT RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PEDAGOGICS (ISSN: 2767-3278)
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VOLUME:
Vol.06 Issue02 2025
10.37547/pedagogics-crjp-06-02-03
Page: - 10-14
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Changing the Term "Academic Skills" In Pedagogy and Ways
of Their Development
Fayzullaeva Nilufar Sadullaevna
Professor of the department "Economic Theory" Tashkent State University of Economics, Uzbekistan
Received:
05 December 2024
Accepted:
07 January 2025
Published:
09 February 2025
INTRODUCTION
The new paradigm of society, based on informatization and
digitalization, has significantly changed the foundations of
interpersonal communication, and with them approaches to
learning. According to today's educational requirements,
the formation and development of students' academic skills
is based on a competency-based approach, which, unlike
the traditional one, is focused mainly on practical
application.
Accordingly, the main task of education is to create
conditions that would allow the formation and
development of skills, as well as professional and personal
qualities of students necessary for the implementation of
successful research activities during the learning process
and upon completion of university education.
Education cannot be successful if students are not equipped
with a system of skills and educational skills. The
development of these skills determines the learning ability
of students, the rate at which they process and assimilate
information, and the quality of their knowledge.
Academic skills development has become necessary in
higher education for several reasons. Firstly, the constant
increase in the volume of information leads to the fact that
students get lost in this stream and, without developed
skills, cannot identify the information that is relevant to
them. Secondly, the result of the availability of information
on the Internet is that the research function has been
replaced by the search function, because students copy
information from the Internet without critical analysis. All
this negatively affects the quality of work created by
students. Thirdly, many students of bachelor's programs
are thinking about continuing their studies in a master's
program abroad. In this regard, they need to know the rules
for scientific work in foreign universities.
The phenomenon of “academic skills” is increasingly
gaining popularity in pedagogical science. However, this
concept has not yet been clarified from the point of view of
translation and compliance of the content of the concept in
the terminological base of methodological and pedagogical
sciences.
The concept of “academic skills” appeared in Western
science in 1974 [1, p. 267], this concept began to be
introduced into domestic pedagogical science, presumably,
in 2003 after Uzbekistan transitioned to a two-stage system
of higher education and expanded the framework in the
context of the Bologna process. This process took place
especially intensively during the development of
educational programs and academic disciplines in the
master's program, since higher demands were placed on its
ABSTRACT
The article discusses the concept of “academic skills”. The author used methods of comparative analysis and schematization t o
clearly demonstrate the content of different interpretations of the term “academic skills”.
Keywords:
Academic skills, academic skills, academic skills, academic competencies, speech activity.
CURRENT RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PEDAGOGICS (ISSN: 2767-3278)
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teaching staff.
The formation of academic skills in students is a scientific
problem, interdisciplinary in nature, related to didactics,
educational psychology and private methods. Teaching
students organizational, informational, intellectual, and
communicative academic skills is a guarantee of the
success of the educational process.
Literature analysis
In
scientific
methodological,
pedagogical
and
psychological sources, terms such as “academic skills”,
“academic skills”, “academic competencies” are found.
Such
diversity
and
different
specifications
of
interpretations of the term “academic skills” cause certain
difficulties in the assimilation of this term in pedagogical
science and the practice of professional training of
bachelors and masters.
The skills necessary for conducting scientific research are
widely covered in the psychological and pedagogical
literature and were considered by such authors as Adams
H, Gordon V, Zueva S, Morozova N, Savenkov A,
Sukhanova E. and others.
Analysis of theoretical sources showed that the concept of
“academic skills” in research works has several names.
First, let's define the meaning of the word “academic”,
presented in the Collins, Oxford, and Webster dictionaries.
Of particular interest to this work is the following meaning:
relating to learning in educational institutions. In other
words, the entire context of studying at a university (space,
content, technology, programs, results, etc.) is covered by
this term and is the starting point for many other words, for
example, academic certificate, academic debt, academic
leave.
The second element of the phrase “academic skills” causes
even more difficulties. In most cases, attention is focused
on skill as the formed ability to apply acquired knowledge
in action, which is as close as possible to the concept of
competence. If we look at the translation of the words
“skill” and “ability” into English, we will see that in both
terms there is a variant of the translation “skill”.
However, the distinctive point is the following meanings
of the word “skill” - “habit (manual)” (habit, manual labor)
and “skill” - skill, competence (competence), competency
(competence), art (art); dexterity (dexterity); proficiency
(skill). This diversity of translation means that the content
of the concept “skill” has a behavioral component (habit),
as well as a psychological and physical component
(dexterity, dexterity). The term “skill” combines the
meanings of “skills”, “abilities”, “competence” and
“competence”, on the basis of which it can be assumed that
the term “academic skills” can be considered as “academic
abilities”, “academic skills”, “academic competencies” ”
and, presumably, “academic competence.”
From the analysis of the definitions of the main types of
skills, it becomes obvious that academic skills are the
student’s ability to solve educational and cognitive
problems based on general methods of logical thinking in
a variety of subject-related activities. Consequently,
academic skills are built on the basis of students' fluency
in a range of complex mental actions.
RESULTS
The introduction of the discipline “Academic skills and
professional competence” into the educational process
revealed several errors.
The most common mistake is that both the teacher and the
student regard written assignments only as a tool for
achieving the goals of the educational process. You need
to rethink your approach to teaching writing to put
academic skills first. In order to teach students to complete
a task, you need to not just give them a written task, but
you need to show how completing this task will affect the
achievement of the goals of the educational process and
what they will learn, and how this will help them in their
studies. If a student does not understand the purpose of
academic skills, his attempts to learn them will be reduced
to copying the structural elements of the text instead of
developing an interest in the subject.
In pedagogical science, the concepts of “skill”, “ability”,
“competence” are differentiated depending on the level of
formation of the system of practical or mental actions. In
the most general form, “ability” and “skill” are considered
as components of any activity, i.e. mastery of a specific
activity means the formation of skills and abilities.
It is the skill that allows you to manage a certain type of
human activity due to the fact that it is based on certain
knowledge (concepts, information, rules) and includes a
sequence of interrelated steps. In relation to academic
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skills, this may mean information about a specific type of
academic activity (working with theoretical sources,
semantic reading, abstracting, etc.), about the procedure for
performing this action and the presence of experience in
the practical implementation of the action in the academic
field.
From the point of view of the activity approach [2], skills
are the ability to carry out any activity efficiently and
effectively. According to the authors, skills are mandatory,
automated components of skills. Some authors believe that
ability and skill reflect different degrees of mastery of the
way to perform a specific action or operation. At the same
time, skills precede a skill (it’s like a “pre-skill”), and a
skill is an automated stage of action, when the performer
of the action no longer thinks about the operations that
comprise it and their sequence. Skills are developed in the
same repeated conditions of activity through systematic
exercises, and skills are formed in the process of
performing
various
exercises
of
a
reproductive,
constructive and creative nature in changing or
increasingly complex conditions; At the same time, both
the educational material itself and the conditions for
performing the action become more complicated.
In Western pedagogy, the term “academic skills”
traditionally combines academic reading, academic
writing, general academic competencies, including
academic oral presentations.
M. A. Lytaeva and E. V. Talalykina [3] emphasize that in
the Western system of higher education, “each of the
components of academic skills is taught as a separate
subject: academic reading (academic reading), academic
writing (academic writing), strategies for college success
(general educational competencies)". It is interesting that
the translation of the expression “general educational
competencies” emphasizes the aspect of achieving
academic success, i.e. these skills significantly influence
the academic and educational achievements of students.
In the triad of “academic reading, writing, speaking” in
relation to the educational practice of foreign universities,
as a rule, academic writing and speaking are in the lead.
Academic writing can be interpreted as one of the ways to
carry out academic reading, since written recordings,
notes, and generalizations made by the student contribute
to the meaningful perception of the text.
All of the above authors associate “academic skills” with
generally accepted types of speech activity - reading,
writing, speaking. There are four types of speech skills:
reading, writing, speaking and listening, each of which
includes private skills. Communication skills are mastery
of types of speech activity as a means of communication
with varying degrees of perfection. A mandatory
component of communication skills is speech skills.
Thus, based on the analysis of the meanings of the terms
“academic”,
“skills”,
“abilities”,
“competence”,
“competence”, presented in the studied literary sources, we
can conclude that the concept of “academic skills” can be
interpreted as “academic skills " and "academic
competencies".
The conditions for the formation of academic skills
include: the presence of pedagogically organized
purposeful activities through the solution of educational
and cognitive programs that require generalization and
transfer to the next stage of education; awareness of the
nature of the activity, acceptance of its purpose by
students; increasing the share of independence, which will
be achieved by posing educational problems and creating
problem situations; reliance on existing knowledge and
skills; stimulating students' interest in acquiring advanced
methods of activity.
“Academic skills” are aspect automated components of
verbal academic skills, for example, academic reading,
writing, speaking, and listening skills. In turn, “academic
skills” are the ability to perceive and express thoughts
orally and in writing using scientific style. “Academic
competencies” are a set of skills that ensure the educational
activity and independence of the student, the achievement
of academic, educational and personal goals.
Academic skills, academic abilities and academic
competencies are in a hierarchical relationship to each
other.
A graduate of a modern university must have such skills
and abilities that will help him, when entering an
independent professional life, navigate in a situation of
uncertainty, when the old norms and meanings of
professional activity have already been lost, and new ones
have not yet been identified.
Competence is a socially defined requirement for a
student’s educational preparation, relevant at a given stage
of development of society as a whole and its educational
CURRENT RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PEDAGOGICS (ISSN: 2767-3278)
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sphere.
Competence, in turn, is an established personal quality [4].
Thus, academic skills in the competency-based approach
can be interpreted as a set of personal qualities that allow
one to independently and successfully solve standard and
non-standard tasks in the academic field.
It seems possible to propose several ways to avoid mistakes
when introducing the discipline “Academic skills and
professional competence”.
Typically, students pay special attention to the language
component, while for teachers the content side is more
important.
First, it is necessary to organize the reading and discussion
of texts that include elements based on argumentation.
These texts act as a model upon which students can build
their own written product.
Work was carried out to compare the quality of work of
four groups of students: 1) a group in which the teacher
explained the process of writing an argumentative essay;
2) a group in which, along with teaching argumentative
writing, students also read and discussed texts that
expressed different points of view on the same issue; 3)
group in which students discussed the same texts, but there
was no teaching of argumentative writing and 4) control
group.
A comparison of the works showed that the quality of the
work of students from the first two groups is much higher
than the quality of the work of students from the third and
fourth groups. These results allowed the authors to
conclude that an integrated approach is necessary:
including reading texts when teaching writing.
In addition to discussing texts, it may be useful to draw up
mental maps for these texts, because To do this, students
need to understand the main idea, arguments and
counterarguments proposed by the author of the text, and
in the absence of the latter, students must “complete” the
mental map by offering their counterarguments.
In order to evaluate the argumentation, it is necessary to
apply the following criteria: clarity, accuracy, logic,
evidence base, relevance, topicality, depth and breadth of
consideration of the issue. By discussing topics in class,
students receive a model of joint logical reasoning, and the
acquired skills can be transferred to another type of activity
- writing.
Secondly, the teacher must give precise, clear and detailed
instructions from the very beginning. Research shows that
in a group in which students received detailed instructions
from a teacher, students produced higher quality work than
in a group in which students were given general
instructions.
In addition, constructive criticism is important for a
student, i.e. Negative criticisms should not be the only
comments; the teacher should also indicate areas in which
the student has made progress. Students also prefer to
receive detailed analysis of their work regarding their
ability to formulate arguments, make connections between
ideas, communicate clearly, use terminology correctly, and
adhere to academic writing standards. It is assumed that if
all of the above is taken into account, the process of
learning academic writing will be effective and interesting
for students.
CONCLUSIONS
Thus, the author has made an attempt to systematize terms
and concepts that are relevant today in the field of higher
education, but are not always correctly understood by
specialists in the field of education. As an analysis of
scientific articles has shown, the term “skills” combines the
concepts
of
“skills”,
“abilities”,
“competence”,
“competence”.
An analysis of students' written work showed that the
errors they made ranged from relatively minor (small
deviations from style, repetition of cognates instead of
using their synonyms) to quite serious (violation of logic,
disruption of communication, or an implicit connection
between the main idea and arguments).
The process of teaching academic skills can be more
effective and interesting for students if, firstly, the topics
for discussion and further writing of a paragraph (essay)
attract students or have practical significance for them and,
secondly, students have previously read texts containing
argumentation , and analyzed it, i.e. We saw in practice
how to present our ideas. In addition to discussing the texts
they have read, students need practice in writing texts of an
academic
nature,
which involves
organizing
the
development of the structure of a paragraph/essay and
training in formulating sentences that represent the main
CURRENT RESEARCH JOURNAL OF PEDAGOGICS (ISSN: 2767-3278)
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elements of the text.
REFERENCES
Velikaya E. V. Developing students’ academic skills in a
Russian context // Current Developments in English for
Academic, Specific and Occupational Purposes / ed. by M.
Krzanowski. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2008. Ch. 17. P.
267–274.
Nemov R. S. General psychology. T. 1: Introduction to
psychology. M.: VLADOS, 2000. 920 p.
Lytaeva M. A., Talalakina E. V. Academic skills: essence,
model, practice // Issues of education. 2011. No. 4. pp.
178–201.
Khutorskoy
A.V.
Educational
competencies
and
methodology of didactics. To the 90th anniversary of the
birth of V.V. Kraevsky // A.V. Khutorskoy: personal
website
