The Competence Paradigm of the State Examination in Professional Media Education: Problems and Experience

The article analyses and summarises the experience of conducting the state final assessment of undergraduate students in journalism with regard to the competence-based examination model.The relevance of the study is related to the need to achieve systemic unity between the competencebased concept of university training of journalists and its final stage that is the assessment of the quality of the received education.Sinceprofessional competence has an integral activity nature, the knowledge paradigm of the final assessment used for many years does not meet modern requirements.The article describes the reasons and primary goals that determined the transition to a new concept of the state examination at the Southern Federal University in 2021.The article offers the rationale for choosing a case method as the main means of assessing the degree of professional competencies among graduates, including examples of developed case tasks.To assess the effectiveness of the applied innovative methods in 2021-2023 the authors surveyed 4th-year undergraduate students in journalism and members of the state examination boards.An empirical study enabled to determine the level of satisfaction of all participants in the educational process with the new model of the final exam to identify the degree of its effectiveness, as well as potential opportunities and ways to improve.The article presents the dynamics of the survey results and their interpretation.The authors conclude that a practice-based approach should be used not only in the process of training journalists but also in organising the final examination.Implementing interdisciplinary case-based tasks allows graduates to demonstrate the degree of competency formation provided by the educational program, which contributes to their confident entry into the modern media.