On the Methodological Basis for Organizing Students’ Research Work in Higher Technical Education

L. A. Gorbunova

The practice of higher technical education in the last year or two testifies to changes in the aims, content, and forms of organizing research work, and to a strengthening of interest in this aspect of the activity of higher educational institutions. An analysis of the literature on the problem allows one to think that the stage of collecting, presenting, and systematizing facts in the study of it may be considered completed. This is especially evidenced by the latest publications¹. From the descriptive level, which in advance excludes the possibility of discovering hidden interdependencies among facts, it is necessary to move toward analytical investigation, i.e., toward the theoretical explanation and substantiation of facts.

The need to move from an empirical to a higher, theoretical level of knowledge of the problem is dictated not only by the logic of scientific research, but also by the demands of practice—especially by the urgent need for an empirical approach to questions of the practical organization of students’ scientific and technical creativity. In this connection, it becomes natural to raise the question of the methodological foundations of students’ scientific research.

It is understandable that the methodological basis for organizing students’ research work is only a moment of the methodology of higher education, and that the latter is a theory of higher education on the basis of dialectical materialism. Consequently, laying claim to a complete solution of the problem can only be a definite complex of investigations.

This work should be regarded as an attempt to substantiate a method of organizing the existing knowledge on the problem into a system of knowledge which, as it is improved, may develop into a theory².

The development of a definite method for organizing knowledge is based on one of the ideas of the systems approach: the systemic character of knowledge is a function of the systemic organization of the object³. The use of the structural approach in solving the problem is prompted by the present state of its investigation. The chief obstacle impeding progress in the study of the essence of students’ research work is an extremely artificial simplification of its mechanism. This is manifested in the separation of this aspect of the formation of the engineer from other aspects of the activity of the higher educational institution, and especially in the ignoring of all the richness of the external social connections of the institution of higher education as a scientific-educational establishment.

A systemic study, which the contemporary logic of scientific cognition regards as one of the principal methods of theoretical analysis, consists in relating some social phenomenon to a definite social system, to its structure. Students’ research work has many-membered and diverse external connections. Each of the systems of connections is potentially essential.

This means that the predominant role in explaining and substantiating the various aspects of the process under investigation may be played by the most diverse theoretical systems. It is already clear today that a full disclosure of the methodological aspect of our problem requires going deeper into the most varied divisions of theoretical knowledge—in the didactics of higher education, in the logic and psychology of scientific creativity, in the economic problems of reproduction

² Theory is understood in this case as the highest expression of the systemic character of knowledge.

³ N. V. Kuznetsov. “The Structure of Scientific Theory and the Structure of the Object.” Problems of Philosophy, 1968, No. 5.

specialty, in questions of student self-government as part of the task of democratizing society, etc.).

In order to overcome the difficulties arising from a systemic approach, it is necessary to choose the most expedient entry into the process that interests us. In determining expediency, one usually proceeds from the standpoint of practice, which reveals the predominant direction in the development of knowledge². Such a direction in the development of knowledge about the problem under study is, in our view, the determination of the content of students’ scientific creativity on the basis of clarifying its role in the training of engineering personnel and in the development of scientific research at the higher educational institution. This understanding of the requirements of practice determines our approach to developing methodological foundations for students’ research work.

The closest systems, into which the scientific work of students (SWS) enters as a subsystem, are scientific work at the higher educational institution (HEI) and engineering education (E). The proposition is becoming generally accepted that students’ scientific research does not have independent significance, but enters as a particular moment into the scientific inquiry of the faculty collective. Today all technical higher educational institutions are turning into recognized scientific-research centers. This makes it possible to include their science in a more general system—scientific research in the country (N). Consequently, the theoretical substantiation of so-called “student” science proceeds from the regularities governing the development of science and the organization of scientific research.

On the other hand, through its interconnections with the content of engineering education at the higher educational institution, students’ research work constitutes a chain of interdependence with production (P), whose requirements are laid down in the program for forming an engineer.

Thus, by establishing the most important external connections of the system-forming process, we obtain a system in which scientific research is connected with production by shorter chains: “science—technology (T)—production” and “science—production.”

Individual elements of the links of such a system, conditioned by the objective laws of the scientific and technological revolution, are clearly recognized and are studied in sufficient detail.

Thus, science studies (a branch of knowledge whose very emergence was brought about by the formation of the given objective system of links) elaborates numerous aspects of the interdependencies among the links science—technology—production. The data of this science, especially the conclusions of authors brought together by the study of the complex problem of the transformation of science into a direct productive force⁴, may be regarded as the initial propositions for an analytical investigation of the problem that interests us. Productive in this regard are, in particular, the empirical formulas of Dobrov, Marakhov, and Meleshchenko, which reflect the interaction of science, technology, and production⁵.

On the other hand, authors who develop questions of the sociology and didactics of higher education are included in the study of the system. They investigate the numerous channels of interaction between higher technical education and production. Their conclusions are no less promising for the solution of our task. These include propositions concerning the change in the content of engineering labor, concerning production as an objective criterion of the effectiveness of engineering education.

The attention of practitioners of higher education is attracted by the process through which university science influences the content of education; by the dependence of students’ scientific creativity on the research of departments; by the role of students’ research work in raising the quality of specialists; and by other aspects of the connection between university science, student science, and education. Their conclusions serve as a serious empirical basis for analyzing the structure of the object of research and for organizing a system of knowledge about it.

At the same time, understanding the connections of individual links of the system is still insufficient for a full theoretical elucidation of any subsystem, including the one that we have placed at the center of our study. The chief obstacle here is the mechanical separation from one another of the data obtained by the indicated scientific fields. Science studies, while ignoring within the system of connections among science and production the element of education, does not notice the influence of pro—

production through engineering education, and the specificity of higher-education science in the regularities of the development of science and the organization of scientific research in the country.

This, in our view, explains the inability to take into account, within the higher-education scientific collective, the particular rational form of the functioning of science, and, in general, the inattention to it.

In turn, authors working on sociological questions of higher education do not notice the connection between higher-education science and science in general; they do not sense, in higher-education scientific work, the manifestation of the general regularities of science, which prevents them from rising above an empirical solution of practical questions.

Only strict accounting of all the basic interdependencies of the system guarantees us the organization of ideas about students’ research work into a scientific system of knowledge.

Of course, it is easier to pose this problem than to solve it in its entirety. And yet posing it cannot be regarded, so to speak, as a merely abstract wish. Already at the present stage of entering into the structure of the object, one can take into account—and therefore must take into account—this principled requirement. Observance of it develops and makes broader the circle of theoretical knowledge that illuminates the meaning of the subsystem, which makes it possible consciously, and therefore in the long term, to resolve internal contradictions within higher education.

The promise of such an approach to developing the methodological basis of students’ research work in technical higher educational institutions can be illustrated by an analysis of the interrelation of the two main functions of the higher-education scientific collective: the development of scientific knowledge (the connection toward science) and the training of specialists (the connection toward production).

The fact that higher-education science is part of more general systems by no means means that all the regularities of those systems (the general systems) can be transferred to the less general one. Each subsystem, to use the language adopted in this method, preserves its autonomy. This proposition corresponds to the dialectical-materialist understanding of the principle of determinism, according to which it signifies not only cause-and-effect connections and dependencies, but also the interrelation of external and internal phenomena⁶. Consequently, higher-education science must be considered as a self-moving, self-developing system. It experiences external influences, is determined by certain common factors (from the organization of science or the content of engineering education), but realizes them through its own specific conditions.

A professorial and teaching staff of a higher educational institution has every right to be considered a research collective alongside academic, sectoral, and industrial research associations. Like all scientific institutions, it is engaged in the production of knowledge, contributes to the transformation of science into a direct productive force, and “imparts” the material elements of productive forces—technology and technique. From this point of view, the approach to it with the measures and requirements of a scientific institution is natural. This is precisely how the higher educational institution is treated in most studies and in official documents at various levels of science administration, including by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education itself⁷.

If, however, one takes into account that a higher educational institution is a single scientific-and-educational institution, that only here are specialists trained for production—this being the specific internal condition of this scientific collective—then the approach to its science requires a corresponding correction. The need to orient all aspects of the activity of higher education toward fulfilling the principal function of the higher educational institution forces us to see the special place of its scientific work in the process by which science is transformed into a productive force of society. It consists in the fact that solving the tasks of revolutionizing technology and forming specialists for new technology are not separated here in time, but are resolved, first, simultaneously and, second, by one and the same collective.

The specific role of the higher educational institution in the development of science and technology, arising from the task of training engineering personnel, has long been shaped by practice itself⁸.

Today the question must be of realizing all the advantages of such an organization of science, inherent in the very principle of the higher technical school, at a new stage in the development of university-based scientific research and education. An analysis of the practice of leading technical higher educational institutions (especially the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, the Tomsk and Leningrad Polytechnic Institutes, and the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School) testifies to interesting searches being carried out in this direction. As a result, numerous points of impact of science on

the educational process, and, to a lesser degree, the feedback effect of the educational process on the content of scientific research¹. In this respect, students’ scientific-research work falls within the field of view.

Being empirical in their foundation, the search for a harmonious combination of science and instruction somewhat reduces the tension of the most important contradiction of higher education—between scientific and educational work. Many theoretical considerations of a more general character, which together could play a methodological role, still remain unexpressed, since the broader connections of university science are not understood. Thus matters stand with the choice of the character of scientific research at a higher educational institution. What is at issue is not the content of scientific problems, but their place in the general movement from exploratory, fundamental scientific investigations, through applied and experimental-design work, to production-related and laboratory-experimental support of production⁹.

Research at technical higher educational institutions (taken as a mass process) has spontaneously become defined at the stage of engineering experimental-design developments. Therefore, in particular, in the institutions of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR more than three-fourths of the cost of all scientific research is accounted for by contract work. But alongside this work, traditional for higher educational institutions, techno-theoretical search is developing more and more in the leading institutions—what are called applied investigations. This is explained by the general tendency toward the erasure of clear boundaries between the stages of research, and therefore, so to speak, threatens to spill over into investigations close to fundamental ones. On the other hand, most of the country’s technical higher educational institutions, for the purpose of developing their own material and technical base (scientific and educational), are beginning to enter into connection with production and are so far establishing themselves on the lower stages of the advancement of science toward production.

Depending on the nature of the research, the links between a higher educational institution’s scientific work and the educational process may differ fundamentally in different institutions. In the first case (at the stage of applied investigations) these links may become very deep. Scientific research may result in the emergence of optional courses needed for specialization and in the formation of new specializations.

The educational process requires, in turn, allocations within the framework of scientific research for special scientific-methodological directions intended to adapt the results of scientific investigations to the training of new specialists. This leads to the inclusion of scientific-methodological work in scientific research. The academic objectives of higher education require a specific understanding of the introduction of the results of higher-education research. A certain aspect of implementation for such higher-education institutions should be considered the degree to which scientific research—its problems and methods—is incorporated into the content of engineering education.

If a higher-education institution is included in the scientific and technical progress at the stage of scientific support for serial production (laboratory and experimental work), many of the indicated forms of connection will prove unrealistic; others will take their place.

The content of students’ scientific-research work will come to be determined and justified by the depth of the connection between the higher-education institution’s scientific and educational activity, with greater or lesser attachment to one or another side. This is attested, in particular, by the varied experience of organizing students’ scientific and technical creativity in different higher-education institutions.^13)

Carrying out minor contractual jobs ordered by enterprises—jobs that do not involve the higher-education institution as a whole as a scientific-educational establishment with its teaching and student collectives—determines the growth of independent student scientific and technical organizations of the type of student design and technological bureaus, very weakly connected with departments through academic channels. Often the initiative in creating them comes from student public organizations, which causes numerous difficulties in their functioning.

As the scientific aspects of the activity of departments and higher-education institutions as a whole converge, the need for independent student organizations may disappear (this process is observed in leading technical higher-education institutions). Scientific research, entering the educational process, makes student science obligatory for every specialist being trained at the department. Student design bureaus give way to students’ educational-research work. The dependence of scientific-research—

^13) See the collection published for the First Scientific-Methodological Conference on the Organization of Students’ Scientific-Research Work: Organization and Effectiveness of Scientific Work of Students of Higher Educational Institutions, Tomsk, 1967.

research work of students on the degree to which the higher educational institution, in its entire scientific-and-educational complex, enters into the system “science—technology—production” has been traced in the article in the most general terms. But such a formulation reveals the promise of the proposed method of organizing knowledge on the problem into a definite system, and the possibility of formulating theoretical propositions that may play a methodological role.

1. See, for example, the report of V. A. Vesilov at the intercity symposium on higher education in Moscow in 1962, “The Role of Scientific Research in Higher Education,” Vestnik vysshei shkoly, 1963, No. 9; S. I. Zinoviev, The Educational Process in the Soviet Higher School. Moscow: Nauka, 1968. ↩↩

2. Research is already being conducted in certain directions. See, for example: V. M. Romentikov, Economic Problems of Higher Education in the USSR: Higher School, Moscow, 1968; G. V. Chutkerashvili, Personnel for Science. “Higher School,” Moscow, 1969. ↩

3. It “as it were turns” the object before the researcher’s gaze in the aspect which, under the given circumstances, has the greatest significance for human activity. I. V. Kuznetsov, “The Structure of a Scientific Theory and the Structure of an Object,” Problems of Philosophy, 1968, No. 5, p. 82. ↩

4. The problem was first formulated by K. Marx and developed by him in a number of works, especially in the partially published manuscripts on technology. ↩

5. G. M. Dobrov, “On the prevision of the development of science,” Voprosy filosofii, 1964, No. 10; V. G. Marakhov and Yu. S. Meleshchenko, “Features and social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution,” Scientific Reports of Higher Education. Philosophical Sciences, 1968, No. 5. ↩

6. B. S. Ukrayintsev, “Processes of Self-Governance and Causality,” Voprosy filosofii, 1968, No. 4. ↩

7. See, for example, the official form of the annual report circulated by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education of the USSR to higher educational institutions in 1968. ↩

8. “Of course, the scientific work of higher educational institutions may be given one or another organizational form; for example, it may be combined into research institutes, but its organic connection with higher educational institutions must be preserved, and its separation from higher educational institutions is impermissible.” Scientific-Research Work of Higher Educational Institutions. Activities of Higher Educational Institutions of the RSFSR in 1925/26. Issue III. Edited by P. I. Khotrovsky and N. I. Chetyapov, Glavprofobr, Moscow, 1927. ↩

9. On the essence of these stages, see: G. V. Volkov, “The Interrelationship of Science and Production,” Voprosy filosofii, 1967, No. 2; and other interpretations of these concepts. ↩