Vol. 2 No. 31 (2025)
Professional Pedagogics

Professional Pedagogics

FOREIGN EXPERIENCE IN RESEARCHING THE PROFESSIONAL CULTURE OF PRACTITIONER PSYCHOLOGISTS IN VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (VET) INSTITUTIONS

Published 11.12.2025

  • Oksana Lapa

Oksana Lapa
Institute of Vocational Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine image/svg+xml

Abstract

Relevance: The necessity of investigating foreign experience in developing the professional culture of practitioner psychologists in vocational education and training (VET) institutions is driven by intensive digitalisation processes, crisis challenges, the transformation of psychological service roles, and heightened requirements for the professional activity of practitioner psychologists; an analysis of foreign experience permits the identification of the best mechanisms and practices for professional culture development that can be adapted to the Ukrainian educational context.

Purpose: The article aims to provide a systemic analysis of foreign theoretical, regulatory, and empirical approaches to the study of practitioner psychologists' professional culture in VET institutions, as well as to outline the possibilities for their implementation into Ukrainian educational practice.

Methods: Theoretical methods include analysis and synthesis (to generalise foreign scientific approaches to understanding psychologists' professional culture), comparative analysis (to contrast theoretical models of professional culture and approaches to its structuring and assessment), systematisation and classification (to organise concepts, methodological approaches, professional culture indicators, and tools for its institutional support), content analysis of scientific sources and regulatory documents (to identify key categories, value orientations, and regulatory perceptions of psychologists' professional culture), and the method of theoretical generalisation (to formulate authorial conclusions regarding the integration of foreign experience into the Ukrainian context); empirical methods involve the analysis of empirical research results (to study the specific activities of psychologists and psychological services abroad) and a comparative analysis of empirical data (related to the formation of psychologists' professional culture).

Results: Foreign scientific approaches to the development of practitioner psychologists' professional culture (systemic, competency-based, value-based, sociocultural, regulatory, and normative-institutional) are generalised; directions for implementing the best foreign experience into domestic practice are identified (clarity of ethical principles, interprofessional interaction, enhancing the quality of assistance, specialist resilience and trust in the psychological service, institutionalisation of supervision, continuous professional development, implementation of operationalisation tools, and the development of digital culture).

Conclusions: Within the foreign scientific tradition, the development of practitioner psychologists' professional culture is regarded as a multidimensional phenomenon formed at the intersection of the systemic organisation of professional activity, the structure of professional competencies, reflexive mechanisms of professional development, and institutional-regulatory policies for the quality assurance of psychological services; understanding the development of these specialists' professional culture involves the integration of ethical values, professional identity, reflexive practices, and institutional responsibility; the implementation of foreign experience into the educational space of domestic VET institutions should be viewed as a strategic process for modernising practitioner psychologists' professional culture, aimed at increasing the quality of assistance, specialist resilience, and overall trust in the psychological service.

Keywords

foreign experience, professional culture, professional activity, practitioner psychologists in vocational education and training institutions, psychologists, vocational education and training (VET) institutions.

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Author Biography

Oksana Lapa

PhD in Pedagogy, Senior Researcher, Doctoral Candidate, Institute of Vocational Education of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0964-7674,
e-mail: oksana.lapa@ukr.net

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