DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ACTIVITY: SOME FEATURES

Scientific research activity (SRA) in comprehensive school is not a new phenomenon. Similar actions have been paid attention at various stages of education. Changes in the quality and quantity of the current stage of society development show a different situation: the pace of life increases, the “turbulence” of the surroundings is observed, globalization and social and economical changes in various segments of society gain more power. At the moment, the education system in Lithuania and other countries is facing different changes. As for the reorganization of Lithuanian education system within the period of the last two decades, it seems to be an intensive and ambiguous process. Lithuania had to pose two fundamental challenges: first, to proceed from the so called “soviet” system of education the one based on national identity and experience, and second, to adapt the new system to the needs for modern society fully integrating the experience of international education. The adjustment of national and international components has remained the major problem of Lithuanian education system up to now. Progress in acquiring the abilities of scientific research activity closely correlates with the development of critical thinking, a choice in strategies for dealing with problems and applying them in practice, the effective use of different information sources, data processing, analysis, synthesis and interpretation and proposing hypotheses and alternatives. In terms of education, an important point is that students should not only better acknowledge natural phenomena, facts and laws but also were able to align them with everyday experience and adapt to different situations. Scientific research activity creates the right conditions for a similar type of integration. Moreover, this is not only theoretical or practical knowledge but also feelings and remarkable discoveries that, first of all, are very important to the child him/herself. In other words, such activity integrates and positively manifests an emotional component of a personality. It is worth mentioning that the process of scientific research activity fully discloses individual interests and abilities of students.