Preparation of future bachelors of psychology to educational and advisory activities on psychosexual development of adolescents

The purpose of the study was to find out the level of readiness of future bachelors of psychology for educational and advisory activities on the psychosexual development of adolescents. The research methodology was based on a combination of theoretical analysis of educational and professional programmes and empirical methods, in particular, content analysis of the curricula of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and Odesa Mechnikov National University questionnaires and surveys of students at these higher education institutions. The results showed that the preparation of students for work in the field of psychosexual development of adolescents remained insufficiently holistic, because educational programmes reflected the topic in fragments, limited to general issues of advisory practice. The average level of readiness of future psychologists was 3.68 points, which indicated a partial development of professional knowledge, skills, and value orientations. The highest rates were recorded for the motivational component, where 39.5% of students demonstrated a high level of positive attitude to the topic of sex education, realising its social significance. However, only 25.5% of respondents achieved a high level of activity skills, which reflected a lack of practical experience and lack of training forms of education. Students named socio-cultural barriers (68%) and lack of methodological training (21%) as the main difficulties. A comparison of the results of the two universities showed a slight difference in integral indicators (3.72 and 3.65 points, respectively). Modernisation of educational programmes for training psychologists requires the integration of psychosexual development topics, advisory ethics, and practice-oriented modules. The practical significance of the results obtained lies in the fact that they could be used by teachers of higher educational institutions in improving the content of educational programmes and developing educational and methodological materials for preparing future psychologists for educational and advisory activities in the field of psychosexual development of adolescents