Current trends in psychological and pedagogical support for training agricultural engineering staf

To ensure the academic right of students to psychological assistance, it is necessary to develop a system of psychological and pedagogical support for university students. In order to identify and substantiate current areas of psychological and pedagogical support for training agricultural engineering staff, the authors analyzed the regulatory and research literature on the problems of psychological and pedagogical support. They also identified some specific features of the organization of psychological services in a number of leading agricultural universities in Russia. The authors have made a conclusion about the predominant focus of psychological assistance on critical and crisis phenomena. The study analyzes empirical data on psychological and pedagogical characteristics of successful engineers and engineering students, including those studying at the agrarian university. The typical parameters of their cognitive sphere, main individual-typological features, and leading personality traits have been identified. It has been found that technical specialists have such typical traits as restraint, suspiciousness, and low sociability. Based on this, the authors identified the main areas of psychological and pedagogical support for agricultural students, taking into account the specific features of engineering areas of training: diagnostics of cognitive abilities and personality traits, assessment of their relevance to the profile of engineering activity, and determination of the conditions for their development. The typical psychological features of engineering staff determine the need for psychological and pedagogical influences aimed primarily at developing communication skills and correcting the emotional sphere.