The Impact of the Project Method on the Development of Leadership Skills in Students

The article examines the influence of the project method on the development of leadership skills of students. The information on using the project method in high school and specifics of development of the leader’s personality in student age is analyzed. A set of research methods was used: pedagogical experiment, testing, observation, Student’s t-test. The study involved 292 people. The predominance of medium indicators of leadership skills of respondents was revealed. Such components as motivation for success and volitional self-control were the least developed. After conducting a formative experiment in the control group, no significant changes were found in all the studied parameters of leadership. In the experimental group, where individual projects were implemented, positive changes were recorded only in the component of motivation for success. The method of group projects has demonstrated effectiveness for the development of all the studied skills, except volitional selfcontrol. The significance of all detected changes is at the level of p=0.05, which determines the need for further modification of the method used. Areas of improvement of group projects are prevention of possible conflicts, complication of educational assignments, realization of qualitative discussion of the final result, taking into account the connection of activity with the specifics of professional training. The obtained data can be used in the practice of teachers and psychologists of higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the development of the leadership skills of students. Further prospects for scientific research include studying the leadership competence of students and finding the correlation of leadership skills with the structural components of personality.