Methodical approaches to the study of future lawyers’ professional training in Canada

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Lviv Polytechnic National University

Methodical approaches to the study of future lawyers' professional training in Canada

Stoliarchuk L.B.

Introduction

skill professional training specialist

In the context of rapid globalization and integration processes affecting all spheres of political, socioeconomic and cultural life, the modern educational domain is being transformed in accordance with international trends in the innovative educational development. Due to global challenges new requirements are being put forward for training highly qualified specialists who possess a high level of knowledge and skills acquired in the process of studying, as well as for increasing the competitiveness of higher education and the country in general. The processes of globalization and integration in society exert a significant influence on the content of specialists' training in the higher education establishments.

Nowadays Ukraine has faced a number of challenges related to the processes of fundamental reform in the sphere of professional training of specialists, in particular in the field of law, who would be able to ensure the formation, development and functioning of the legal field of social relations, legal culture and legal awareness of the population, providing the basis for establishing the rule of law and promoting the civil society. Developed countries of the world are known to possess effective systems of professional training of legal specialists, including Canada whose educators and scientists are actively involved in projects on the advancement of legal education, conducting scientific research, preparing reports on global trends in higher education in the field of law, aimed at optimizing the professional training of future lawyers pursuant to modern educational trends. A vital role in improving the professional training of future legal specialists in the system of higher education of Ukraine is played by the implementation of comparative and pedagogical studies with the aim of identifying the possibilities of applying innovative ideas in the system of higher legal education of Ukraine.

Main body

The study of professional legal training at Canadian universities is based on the application of various methodological approaches of comparative pedagogy, a brief description of which is presented below.

A systemic approach considers the object of study as a whole system of interconnected and interacting elements, each of which performs the appropriate functions according to the structural organization of the system. This system includes the following components: the purpose and tasks of education, the content of educational activities, subjects of the educational process, types and forms of obtaining education, methods of organizing educational activities, regulatory and legal support, needs of the labor market and requests of society. “In systemic research, the analyzed object is considered as a certain set of elements, the interrelationship of which determines the integral properties of this set. The main emphasis is placed on identifying various connections and relationships that take place both inside the object under study and in its interaction with the external environment. The properties of the object as a complete system are determined not only and not so much by the total properties of its individual elements or subsystems, but by the specificity of its structure, special system-forming, integrative connections of the object under study” [10, p. 10]. As Honcharenko states, “a systemic approach in pedagogy is aimed at revealing the integrity of pedagogical objects, identifying various types of connections within them, and bringing them into a single theoretical picture” [3, p. 305].

Systematicity is interpreted not only as a fundamental characteristic of a specialist in the context of graduate education, but as Vitvytska notes, also as “a real object and a cognitive tool, a way of our vision of an object. The main signs of systematicity include: integrity and purposefulness, structuredness, that is, composition of elements, internal division, arrangement, classification of this whole; external and internal relationship; integration of individual elements and connections” [2, p. 9].

A systemic approach as a methodical tool involves the formation of a research strategy, creating a holistic model of the object that acts as a means of organizing the research. In the context of this approach, we analyzed the structure and organization of the constituent parts of the system of future lawyers' professional training in Canada, studied the patterns of their combination and functioning, considering their internal and external connections.

In the context of comparative and pedagogical research an axiological approach is considered as a system of values and value orientations of an individual that direct and motivate his or her life and actions, regulate behavior and activity. Values, acting as incentives, create conditions for human realization at the personal and professional levels and ensure continuous professional development and self-improvement [3]. The use of an axiological approach becomes especially relevant in the modern conditions of radical changes in the value orientations of society, rethinking the system of universal values and gradual transition to the values of a new era, where higher education is considered to be a global value and a prerequisite for the development of a successful society and a competitive specialist. As Boychuk claims, “the axiological approach not only proclaims man as the highest value of society and the goal of social development in itself, but also allows studying phenomena (including pedagogical ones) from the point of view of the possibilities inherent in them to satisfy human needs" [1, p. 122].

The application of the axiological approach to the analysis of the professional training of legal specialists at the universities of Canada made it possible to study the peculiarities of the content of educational and professional curricula, which involves not only the acquisition of knowledge and skills, but also the formation of universal, national and professional values.

In the context of an acmeological approach, the professional training of specialists in the field of law in the higher education system of Canada is considered as a process of personality formation, focused on achieving the highest professional results. The application of this approach implies the search for effective ways and means of organizing educational activities aimed at the formation of a high level of professional competences. The use of an acmeological approach helps students to realize the need to achieve acme, to form mastery, professionalism, which is accomplished in the process of professional training and contributes to the awareness of the importance of continuous professional self-development. According to Danylova, a person who claims to achieve a high professional level should constantly develop and improve, while reaching new heights of professionalism. The basis of this process is self-development, self-education, self-organization, self-control of a person, self-realization of his or her creative potential in the process of activity on the way to the top (“acme”).

Therefore, based on the acmeological approach, the training of a future legal specialist can be considered as a process of everyone achieving the maximum (“acme”) development of theoretical and practical excellence in educational and professional activities. In the context of our research, this approach is used in the process of studying the content and organization of students' individual work as a prerequisite for lifelong education, openness to mastering new knowledge and skills, continuous professional development on the way to achieving a high level of professional competence.

Today, an interdisciplinary approach is gaining particular popularity among the methods of scientific research. According to Sysoeva, “an interdisciplinary approach resolves the contradictions existing in the subject system of education between the disparate assimilation of knowledge and the need for its synthesis, holistic and complex application in practice, in human activity and life” [8, p. 6]. Kolot notes that “the interdisciplinary approach can be implemented in two main formats, scenarios or approaches. In the first format - the most common, interdisciplinarity builds bridges between different sciences, informally unites them, without violating individuality, independence, uniqueness, originality. In the second format, interdisciplinarity appears as a real tool for unifying sciences, the emergence of integrated products, projects, interdisciplinary objects of research, the further mastery of which is fundamentally important for both science and education” [6, p. 19].

Applying the interdisciplinary approach, the types of educational and professional training curricula for bachelors in the field of law were analyzed and it was discovered that Canadian universities offer a set of educational services that are implemented in combined educational and professional curricula for training future specialists in the fields of law and business management (English: Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Business Administration), Law and Computer Science (Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), Law and English Language (Juris Doctor and Master of Arts in English), Law and International Relations (Juris Doctor and Master of Global Affairs), Law and Journalism (Juris Doctor and Master of Journalism), etc. in the context of double or combined specialties. In addition, we can claim that the interdisciplinary approach was also reflected in the content of educational disciplines.

In the process of researching the system of professional training of future lawyers in Canada, we used a person-oriented approach, which is based on the organization of the educational process taking into account the personal characteristics of the student, his or her right to realize individual goals and choose his or her own life path. A person-oriented approach to education is a holistic system of scientific principles justifying the possibility of educating each person with consideration to his or her natural potential and acquired abilities. Pehota mentions that a person-oriented approach should be considered as “an important psychological and pedagogical principle, the basis of which is a set of original theoretical propositions about the person and practical methodical tools that contribute to its holistic understanding, study and harmonious development” [7, p. 29].

The use of a person-oriented approach in the field of education helps student to form their own personalities, to determine their positions in life, namely to master a certain system of knowledge, to choose values that are significant for them, to discover a range of life and scientific interests and to adhere to them throughout his life. Therefore, in the research process, this approach is implemented through the analysis of the degree of flexibility of educational and professional curricula, the possibility of choosing an educational trajectory, based on legal students' personal priorities and preferences.

An activity-oriented approach, which is closely related to a person-oriented one, is based on the belief that comprehensive development of the individual occurs in the process of activity. A personal activity depends on his or her place in society, on the conditions that occur in life, on how a person is formed in unique individual circumstances. The leading characteristic of activity is objectivity, which determines different types and directions of activity. An activity-oriented approach involves the connection of the content of higher professional education and training with the professional activities of future specialists, taking into account the orientation of the educational process to students' personality and their individual characteristics. This approach makes it possible to explore the individual's ability for continuous development and self-improvement, to form the ability to choose the right strategy for achieving defined goals.

In the context of the above approach, we analyzed the practical component of the professional training of future specialists in the field of law at Canadian universities, which is aimed at involving them in various types of activities in order to prepare them not only for professional activities, but also for an active and versatile life in society, to form personal traits and abilities, professional knowledge and skills.

The use of a synergistic approach in research involves the identification of patterns of self-organization and the formation of complex, non-linear, open systems, to which the Canadian education system belongs, regardless of the nature of their constituent components. As Kozlovskyi states, “the theory of synergetics focuses attention on imbalance, instability as a natural state of open nonlinear systems, on the multivariate and uncertain ways of their development, depending on the multitude of factors and conditions that affect it” [5, p. 128]. The use of a synergistic approach to the study of the professional training of future specialists in the field of law helps to investigate and reveal the effects of changes in the professional training of lawyers more thoroughly, to optimize the system of legal education, to follow the dynamics of its development, which depends on the historical and pedagogical reality, social, political and economic factors.

The results of the analysis of the scientific and pedagogical literature proved the wide application of a competency-based approach to research in the field of education at the beginning of the 21st century, which is due to the political, economic, social, and cultural development of society in the context of the growth of globalization and the competitiveness of the international educational space [13]. This approach focuses on the learning outcome, which is manifested in the formation of the students' competencies and the ability to effectively solve various professional tasks, because the main task of education is to prepare a person for effective activity and life in a modern knowledge society [12]. Khymynets characterizes this approach as “the focus of the educational process on the formation and development of key and subject-specific competencies of the individual” [9, p. 46]. Thus, the emphasis is shifted from the knowledge level of the subjects of education to their ability to use information to solve practical problems, thereby strengthening its practical orientation.

Yaroshenko considers a competency-based approach as “one of the directions of education modernization and one that implies a high readiness of graduates of higher educational establishments for successful activities in various fields due to the formation of a system of key competencies in them and corresponds to the general concept of educational standards adopted in most developed countries and is directly related to the transition in the construction of the content of education and its quality control systems to the system of key competencies” [11, p. 7]. A competency-based approach determines the result-targeted and practical orientation of education, its pragmatic and subject-professional aspect. It provides effective and high-quality professional training of future specialists by focusing on the practical component of the educational process. This approach presupposes that students acquire the experience of solving life and professional problems, performing key functions, social roles, and realizing competences and competencies.

In accordance with the competency-based approach, we analyzed the set of competencies that future legal specialists in Canada have to master, and their formation is presented in the learning outcomes.

Conclusions

Professional training of specialists in the field of law is crucial in ensuring the functioning of the rule of law and requires constant improvement in accordance with the needs of the labor market and the demands of society. Performing comparative pedagogical research with the aim of highlighting the peculiarities of the professional training of specialists in different countries represents inexhaustible opportunities for the development of the domestic system of higher legal education. The study of regulatory and legal documentation, educational and professional programs of universities, reports of international and national organizations, pedagogical and professional periodicals, the scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists made it possible to thoroughly analyze the theoretical and practical components of the professional training of future law specialists in the conditions of university education in Canada and to outline the possibilities of using progressive ideas of the Canadian experience in the higher education system of Ukraine.

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