Resource availability as a condition for the effectiveness of professional activity of the senior staff of departments and faculties of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia

Tikhonova Elena Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-8598-8710 Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology and Pedagogy in the activities of Internal Affairs Bodies, Omsk Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 644092, Russia, Omsk region, Omsk, Komarova Avenue, 7 belousov-elena@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The organization and structure of the educational process of the educational organization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, according to Yu. P. Vetrov, D. A. Ruban ^{[1; p. 14-15]}, has its own specifics: managerial and organizational subordination, sociostructure, organizational, mentality, regulatory determinism, conservatism, ritualism. The organizers of the educational process at the University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia are the heads, faculty, course officers and other employees. Of particular importance is the activity of managers who carry out direct pedagogical influence on the variable composition, which includes the leadership of departments and faculties. They are, in fact, the key elements of the hierarchy in the organizational structure of the pedagogical process. Acting as subjects of the educational process, they determine not only the specifics of their interaction with the variable composition, but also the activities of the service team, take on organizational and managerial functions, and provide communication between departments of the educational institution. Thus, they establish a format for the implementation of pedagogical influence on the variable composition.

The management staff of departments and faculties simultaneously implements managerial, educational and service regulations.

The management regulations presuppose the implementation of the following functions: organizational, strategic, innovative, controlling, communicative and educational. Each of these functions is transformed into a system of tasks facing the head and requiring managerial decision-making. Here are just some of them:

- selection of priority areas of activity of the service team;

- formulation and setting of short- and medium-term goals for yourself, individual employees and the team as a whole;

- stimulating, checking, evaluating and correcting the results of subordinates' activities;

- allocation of powers, tasks and resources;

- establishment of external and internal relations, coordination of the work of departments and individual employees;

- maintaining a favorable moral and psychological climate in the team based on moral and ethical and official standards of behavior.

The service regulations assume that the head in the system of internal affairs bodies acts not only as a subject of management, but also as an object in a hierarchical management system. Official activity implies compliance with a number of regulations of internal affairs bodies, the implementation of which determines the executive nature of the head's activities. At the same time, as A.D. Ulyanov and A.V. Zhaglin emphasize, this activity "has a pronounced managerial and educational orientation" ^{[2; p.130]}.

What is common to the pedagogical component of the activities of the management of departments and faculties is that they act as subjects of creating an educational environment to solve the problems of development, education, and training of the younger generation. It is important to take into account that the implementation of pedagogical influences takes place in a constantly changing world, which is becoming increasingly uncertain and unpredictable, requiring significant resources from subjects implementing pedagogical influences to solve promising tasks not only for their future, but also for the future of the younger generation.

The specifics of the professional activities of the senior staff of departments and faculties require them to comply with the requirements of each of the listed regulations.  Our research has shown that 3.6% of the subjects have already formed the stress phase "exhaustion" (inability to cope with stress, which manifests itself in psychosomatic and psychovegetative disorders, emotional deficit and detachment). One or more symptoms of exhaustion were formed in 10.35% of the subjects, in 43.6% of managers these symptoms are in the formation stage. The data obtained indicate a high degree of stress in professional activity and the urgency of the problem of depletion of psychological resources of the senior staff of departments and faculties of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

A brief review of the literature

The problem of realizing the influence of individual psychological characteristics of a personality on the regulation of professional activity is considered in the works of both domestic and foreign psychologists ^[3-10].  Research by H. Baharun et al. ^[11] demonstrates a strong relationship between the results of professional activity of employees and psychological resources of the individual. Moreover, K. Cole, F. Luthans and co-authors found that knowledge of the psychological resources of the individual, in these studies we are talking about psychological capital, can be used to manage staff turnover, professional burnout and employee stress ^{[12, 13]}. Psychological resources are associated with the effectiveness of professional activity, a person's ability to recover from stress, increased responsibility, failures, etc. Effectiveness, in turn, is considered to be a person's built-in belief in their abilities to mobilize cognitive resources, behaviors and motivation necessary to perform a predetermined task in given contexts.

The high level of requirements imposed on the senior staff of departments and faculties of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia presupposes the availability of sufficient resources to cope with the requirements, while maintaining the effectiveness of professional activity. In accordance with the model of work requirements and resources (The Job Demands-Resources model, JD-R) E. Demerouti, A. B. Bakker, the same organizational requirements can have both a negative effect, reducing the productivity of the subject of professional activity with a lack of resources, and a positive effect, mobilizing and activating employee resources, contributing to the maintenance of psychological well-being and work motivation ^[14]. S. A. Druzhilov describes the effectiveness of professional activity as the ratio of the value of results to the value of costs ^{[5; p. 35]}. The results and expenses can be both objective and subjective. In this study, only subjective components of a psychological or personal nature are considered. Indicators of the value of the result are the subjective satisfaction of the manager with the results of his activities, his interest in the case, and professional self-esteem. The indicators that determine the "price" of psychological costs include estimates of the frequency of stressful situations, the intensity of professional activity, and negative mental states accompanying the performance of official duties. Such conditions occur when human resources are depleted. A person as a complexly organized self-regulating system operates with resources of different levels ^{[3, p. 128]}, in this work we consider only psychological resources, by which, in accordance with the resource approach of S. Hobfoll ^[10], we understand flexible individual psychological properties of personality, amenable to correction and development, situationally actualized and leading to significant results S. Hobfoll emphasizes the importance of preserving and accumulating resources throughout a person's professional activity. If the depletion of resources is harmful to humans and can lead to adverse consequences for the psyche and body, then the advanced acquisition and accumulation of resources allows you to prepare for stress situations, ensuring proactive coping with them ^{[15, pp. 105-107]}.

In the works of L.M. Mitina and her students, based on a systematic personality-developing approach to the study of human professional activity, the idea of coping behavior as a psychological resource of personal and professional development is concretized, thus coping behavior can also act as a psychological resource of professional activity ^[16].

The system of resources available to the subject of activity in solving professional tasks, achieving goals, etc. reflects its resource availability. Managers who actively retain and acquire resources that can help them achieve professional goals are more likely to achieve professional success and evaluate themselves as professionally successful and effective employees.

At the same time, the study of the relationship between resource availability and the effectiveness of professional activities of the senior staff of departments and faculties of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the first time became the subject of psychological research.

The hypothesis of the study

We assumed that a large number of requirements imposed on the leadership of departments and faculties will actualize the psychological resources of the personality of managers with high efficiency of professional activity and lead to depletion of resources with low efficiency of professional activity.

The purpose of the study was to study the relationship between subjective representations of the effectiveness and success of the professional activities of the senior staff of departments and faculties with their resource availability.

Research methods

In order to collect empirical data, the following methods were used:

 - an author's questionnaire in which respondents were asked to assess the frequency of stress, tension, effectiveness and success of professional activity;

- questionnaire "Strategies for overcoming stressful situations" by S. E. Hobfoll (adapted by N. Vodopyanova and E. Starchenkova);

- "Questionnaire of proactive coping behavior" by E. Greenglas, R. Schwarzer and S. Taubert (adapted by E. Starchenkova);

- questionnaire of A. Bakker's "Psychological Capital" (as adapted by A. S. Manichev);

- "The Test of Resilience" by S. Maddi (adapted by D. A. Leontiev);

- "The Test of life Orientations" by J. Crambo and L. Maholik, adapted by D. A. Leontiev.

The study involved 367 managers and their deputies with service experience in the internal affairs bodies from 2 to 38 years, in office from several months to 29 years, of which:

- 28.9 % of those holding the position of head and 28.6 % of the deputy head of the department, 20.4 % of the head and 22.1 % of the deputy head of the course of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia;

- 16.1% of respondents are women, 83.9% are men.

The logic of the study went from negative factors that reduce employee stress tolerance to the search for positive factors that increase stress tolerance and contribute to increased subjective well-being.

The methods of processing the obtained data were the methods of mathematical statistics: descriptive statistics, verification of the obtained data for the normality of the distribution were carried out using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov criterion, correlation analysis using Spearman's r–criterion using the IBM SPSS Statistics 21 application software package.

Results and their discussion

The analysis of the respondents' answers to the questions of the author's questionnaire showed:

The average value of managers' assessment of the effectiveness of their professional activities on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 is "low", 7 is "high", was 5.8 points. The average value of managers' assessment of their professional success on a scale from 1 to 7 was 5.79 points. Managers rate the success and effectiveness of their activities quite highly.

The average value of managers' assessment of the frequency of stressful situations in professional activity on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 corresponds to the characteristic "almost never", 7 – "very often" was 3.96 points. The average value of managers' assessment of the level of intensity of professional activity on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 corresponds to the characteristic "light, does not cause tension, 7 – "very heavy and stressful" is 4.88 points.

Thus, with sufficient stress intensity and the level of intensity of professional activity, managers evaluate their work as effective and successful, which indirectly indicates a high resource availability of the leadership of the studied groups.

The analysis of correlations between managers' subjective perceptions of their professional effectiveness and success with coping strategies and psychological resources has shown:

1. Effectiveness is positively interrelated with constructive, increasing adaptive capabilities of a person, and proactive, proactive strategies of coping behavior: "assertive actions", "search for social support", "search for emotional support", "proactive overcoming".  And it is negatively interrelated with the strategy of coping behavior "avoidance", which E.S. Starchenkova attributed to the group of non-constructive strategies because it is aimed primarily at reducing mental stress and does not contribute to resolving a stress situation or personal development ^[6]. That is, the higher the head evaluates the effectiveness of his professional activity, the more often he implements constructive and proactive strategies coping behavior, and even less often destructive ones.

2. Success is positively correlated with the constructive strategy of coping behavior ""assertive actions" and negatively with proactive strategies of coping behavior based on the search and attraction of an external resource, "search for instrumental support" and "search for emotional support". Thus, the search for external support is not associated with success in the professional field among respondents.

3. Effectiveness is positively correlated with eleven (out of twelve studied) psychological resources: "self-efficacy", "self-esteem", "resilience", "engagement", "control", "risk taking", "meaningfulness of life", "goals in life", "process of life", "effectiveness of life", "locus of control-I", "manageability of life".

4. Success is positively interrelated with most of the studied psychological resources: "self-efficacy", "resilience", "engagement", "control", "risk taking", "meaningfulness of life", "goals in life", "process of life", "effectiveness of life", "locus of control-I", "manageability of life".

In general, we can conclude about the high resource availability of the senior staff of departments and faculties of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. Thus, the higher the head evaluates the effectiveness and success of his professional activity, the more psychological resources are objectified in his mind, the higher his resource availability.

Conclusions and conclusion

Thus, high indicators of professional efficiency and success in the subjective representations of the management of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia allow us to conclude about a high level of resource availability.

The results of the conducted research can be used for an operational assessment of the actual resource availability of the head when a psychologist conducts group and / or individual work on psychological support, which is considered as the optimal condition for becoming a professional. In addition, the study confirmed the thesis formulated by N. E. Vodopyanova and co-authors: psychological support should include "a system of measures at the organizational and personal levels that contribute to the expansion of the "resource base" – resource provision" ^{[3; p.126]}, which will significantly increase the effectiveness of the professional activities of the leaders of the study group.

Promising areas of research may be the search for models for purposefully increasing the resource availability of the leadership of the internal affairs bodies within the framework of the implementation of psychological support.