Keyword: «model validity»

The social order in the field of preschool education determines the need for the development of children's initiative and involves not only the development of pedagogical tools for this process, but also a theoretical and empirical justification of its applicability. The purpose of our research is to work out and test organizational and pedagogical conditions for the development of initiative in older preschool children on the basis of volunteer activities (criteria, indicators, levels, diagnostic techniques, partial program and technology, etc.). The article presents the author's criterion model for studying the level of initiative development in older preschool children, statistical processing of the experiment results. The content of diagnostic procedures is determined taking into account the targets of the Federal State Educational Standard for Preschool Education. The pedagogical tools are based on interviews with preschoolers, the method of pedagogical observation of children during free, specially organized activities. The article discusses scientific approaches to the study of the concept of "initiative", the types of initiative and its characteristics. On the basis of a theoretical analysis of scientific works, we found a set of criteria for assessing the level of initiative development as a multidimensional and multilevel phenomenon, which are in certain relationships with each other: 1) motivational-value; 2) informational-cognitive; 3) emotional-volitional; 4) regulatory activity-oriented. On a sample of these criteria for the level of initiative development in older preschool children of the experimental group (N = 53) under the conditions of a formative experiment based on the introduction of a partial program and technology for the development of initiative of preschoolers through their inclusion in volunteer activities, it was empirically found out that these criteria for the representation initiative as a system are chosen adequately to the set goal and in their sum will validly reflect its manifestation. In the course of the final comparative diagnosing the level of initiative development in older preschool children, a positive trend was obtained, which proves the effectiveness of the worked out organizational and pedagogical conditions aimed at developing initiative in older preschool children on the basis of volunteer activities.