Keyword: «vuca-world»

Given the increasing uncertainty of the external environment and the expansion of the introduction of the concept of sustainable development, a number of tasks arise in the activities of modern enterprises to clarify criteria for assessing their own competitiveness. In this regard, it is necessary to determine what modern grounds can be used to clarify the content of the competitiveness criteria.

Currently, the predictable, calm world has been replaced by a dynamic and complex VUCA world, in which it is important for the digital generation of young people to use soft skills. Many of these skills are based on the appropriate level of development of certain types of thinking and its qualities. The purpose of our research was to study different types of thinking among high school students, which could contribute to their personal self-knowledge, timely correction of the characteristics, developed at an insufficient level, and more conscious further professional self-determination. The sample was made up of regular groups of high school students. The work used a set of complementary methods: organizational, theoretical, empirical, data processing methods, methods of research results presentation. To study the types of thinking at the ascertaining and control stages of the study, the following diagnostic tools were used that were consistent with the indicators of validity, reliability, standardization, and representativeness of test norms: the questionnaire «Determination of thinking types and the level of creativity» (Bruner), the test «Logical patterns» (Lippman), the method «comparison of concepts» (Vygotsky, et al.), the method «Exclusion of excess» (Rubinstein), the test for the assessment of logical thinking, the test «Meaning of words». In the course of the formative experiment, a specially worked out program was used, which included a set of lessons, divided into several blocks. Its implementation was accompanied by the introduction of a number of experimental conditions. The results obtained made it possible to identify a tendency for the prevailing development of thinking in images among modern high school students (which is characteristic of clip thinking) and a fall in the indicators of logical thinking, which is reflected in the uncritical perception of information, illogicality of the choices being made, the lack of desire to find the most rational method of solving the problem and the ability to generalize large databases, etc. With purposeful systematic work on the development of different types of thinking of high school students, the most mobile in terms of change are symbolic and creative types of thinking. Other types can be developed as well with appropriate work, but at a slower pace.

The article deals with the transformation of the labor market and changes in the demand for skills of specialists under the influence of modern factors: digitalization, the spread of environmental, social and management standards (ESG), slow economic growth and a high cost of living. The authors raise questions: what kind of world should we prepare students for? What skills are mostly demanded today? The authors come to the conclusion that in the conditions of an unstable, multi-valued, complex and indefinite world, skills from the “soft” (over-professional) category become the most significant. This is confirmed by data from the World Economic Forum research published in the Future of Jobs reports in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2023. The authors propose to create a Personal Management Laboratory on the basis of Petrozavodsk State University for a systematic solution to the problem of the lack of the most demanded supra-professional skills today.