TAXONOMIC PRINCIPLES OF MONITORING INTELLECTUAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF STUDENTS IN THE COMPETITION OF THE JUNIOR ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF UKRAINE

Abstract

Monitoring the intellectual potential of the state (which can also include school education) is a comprehensive system of observation and assessment of the country's ability to generate, accumulate and effectively use knowledge for its development. Today, this process is especially relevant and actually allows for a kind of "inventory of the brains" of the country and the conditions in which they work.

The article uses the taxonomic method to investigate the state of the intellectual potential of the regions of Ukraine through the prism of the level of success of student performances in the annual competition-defense of scientific and research works, which is held by the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (JAS). Typically, the taxonomic approach is used to build ratings of the objects under study or to solve clustering problems. The article, as a result of the research

conducted, builds a ranking of the regions of Ukraine at the regional level. Formal computational procedures that are the basis of the taxonomic method are described, and their application for conducting monitoring studies of the educational environment is demonstrated.

For example, the 2019 competition defense was analyzed - the last stable year in Ukraine, which preceded the negative development of socio-economic processes due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent introduction of martial law in Ukraine from 2022. To apply taxonomic procedures, the following characteristics were determined or calculated for each region: the number of students who participated in the competition, percentages of student success, success indicators of scientific supervisors (university professors and secondary school teachers), total ratings of all contestants and prize-winning students. Pairwise correlation coefficients were calculated to confirm the correctness of the study conducted and, as a result, taxonomic indicators of the development of regions by intellectual achievements of schoolchildren were calculated.

Based on the results obtained, generalized conclusions were made regarding the state of the regional educational environment of Ukraine in 2019.

Keywords: competition-defense of the JAS, multidimensional analysis, taxonomic method, MCDA – methods, ranking objects by a set of indicators, intellectual achievements