THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPIL’S GAME-PLAYING COMPETENCE

Abstract

The aim of this article is to describe of the psychological structure of game-playing competence of primary school pupils and analyze the effectiveness of the play-based developing complex. The objectives are: to identify modality-specific features of verbal memory; to define the factor structure and profiles of game-playing competence; to analyze the experimental research results of the effectiveness of the play-based developing complex aimed to strengthen modality-specific and motivational resources of cognitive process through consolidation of motor and emotional memory. The author designed a play-based developing complex to improve game-playing competence of primary school pupils in the process of learning language. The complex includes: game-oriented language teaching materials (manipulatives) to use possibilities of kinesthetic system; a set of extra didactic material to develop pupils’ visual awareness; activities for mastering manipulatives, which are based on activity principles of manipulative games, basic theoretical positions of planned stage-by-stage formation of mental actions; teacher’s guide to provide successful application of manipulative games in actual teaching. The experimental research results allowed defining the effectiveness of the play-based developing complex for a full-fledged development of the game-playing competence components of primary school pupils. The three-factor structure of game-playing competence («affective response», «subjectivity», «regulatory features») has a moderate level of school anxiety, and high levels of learning goal and game-playing orientation, subjectivity, volitional regulation and advantage kinesthetic system.

Keywords: didactic manipulative games, game-playing competence, play-based developing complex.