Classification of students’ communication barriers in educational and professional activities

The subject of the study is the classification of students’ communicative barriers in educational and professional activities. The author examines the nature of these difficulties and their sources, focusing on the localization of the barrier (in the student’s characteristics or in the educational environment) and the side of communication it affects. Existing Russian and international typologies are analysed; their limitations are shown: many either concentrate only on individual psychological factors or mix causes of different natures. Theoretical foundations based on the theory of difficult communication, the systemic and activity approaches are considered. The study explores how communicative requirements change across four types of educational and professional activities – theoretical, practical, project-based and research – and identifies conditions under which different difficulties become more pronounced. The aim is to construct a classification that more accurately describes students’ difficulties and distinguishes them by nature. The methods include theoretical analysis of scientific literature, comparative analysis of existing classifications, and construction of an original classification based on two criteria.The novelty of the study lies in classifying communicative barriers simultaneously by two criteria – the level of localization and the side of communication. At their intersection four types are identified: cognitive, personal, structural and socio-role. This differentiation reveals distinctions where difficulties appear outwardly the same. The same manifestation, for example silence in class, may have a different nature. Cognitive and structural barriers are more pronounced in project-based and research activities. The personal barrier is especially noticeable in public evaluation, while the socio-role barrier is linked to role distance. The classification provides a theoretical basis for distinguishing the causes of difficulties and shows that their sources may lie both in the student and in the conditions of educational interaction. Further development involves operationalisation of the types and their empirical verification.