The application of psychological and pedagogical methods in the formation of cognitive skills
Authors: Amrahli Limunet 
Published: February 2025

Since the beginning of the 20th century, world history has entered a new era of globalization. This has brought new qualitative and quantitative demands on the outcomes of human activity in education and various labor fields. In a rapidly changing environment where modern innovations replace one another, individuals face the necessity of understanding problematic situations and acquiring the necessary cognitive skills to address them. The answers to questions about how these skills are formed, how the cognitive structure inherent to the concepts of a "new human" and a "new personality" is developed and how to ensure effective, results-oriented cognitive activity lie within the emerging field of cognitive psychology. For this reason, current research in cognitive psychology, particularly studies on the formation of cognitive structures within educational environments at various stages of ontogenesis, holds special relevance. Applying these findings to the learning process is a priority. Since the beginning of the 21st century, another notable issue has emerged in this context. It has become evident that it is essential to create new pedagogical practices that integrate concepts such as "artificial intelligence", "computer metaphors" and "cognitive skills", proposed by cognitive psychology. Consequently, cognitive psychology has become a key discipline for studying changes in human psyche and addressing critical, yet unresolved, issues. One such issue is identifying the psychological and pedagogical conditions for forming learners' cognitive activity during the educational process. The new findings in this area can help identify the methods, tools and environmental standards required to organize conscious, results-oriented and effective activities among learners during the learning process. This would allow for a more efficient organization of cognitive activity. The acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities by learners – the main subjects of the educational system occur during the learning process. Each problem related to this process is studied within the psychological activity of learners and educators. Therefore, addressing cognition in the learning process and, in modern approaches, exploring the cognitive domain and cognitive activity begins with identifying the connections and relationships between the psychopedagogical structure and other domains. Cognitive skills develop in parallel with adolescents' self-identification, their alignment with images close to their emotions, tendencies, desires and ultimately, their self-awareness. New skills emerge during adolescents' systematically, purposefully and methodically structured cognitive activity within the learning process. In other words, effective cognitive activity during learning helps adolescents achieve their life goals. Thus, there is a growing need to explore adolescents' cognitive activity within the learning process and the factors that stimulate it by referencing the activity approach, a critical direction in cognitive psychology. Adolescents' cognitive activity depends on the motivations driving it. It should not be regulated by random motivations. If learning activity is motivated by inner feelings, desires and emotions, difficulties may arise in completing the activity with willpower. To achieve positive results, adolescents' cognitive activity should align with their value-motivation domain and their needs for self-identification, self-development and self-affirmation, accompanied by emotional and volitional efforts from beginning to end. The research highlights this level of motivation as one of the crucial conditions that shape the psychological structure of cognitive activity. In pedagogical psychology, the issue of how adolescents' learning activities are motivated by needs and interests to acquire a cognitive nature is one of the topics requiring comprehensive study.