The pedagogical nature of professional development and self-development of specialists in the construction industry within further vocational education

This article aims to reveal the pedagogical nature of professional development and self-development of specialists in the construction industry within further vocational education. Based on the works of both Russian and foreign scholars, the authors identify general and specific characteristics of these processes, establish their relation with a person’s professional formation, and specify their content in the industry-related context. Taking into account existing professional-genetic periodisations, three progressive stages of professional development and self-development of specialists are identified according to the “work experience in the construction industry” criterion. The first stage is related to the augmentation of professional competency of a novice specialist (up to 5 years of experience in the construction industry) for solving new functional tasks. The second stage is characterised by enriching the professional competency of a sufficiently experienced specialist (from 5 to 10 years of experience) for career advancement in construction companies. The third stage involves the actualisation of a mature specialist’s (more than 10 years of experience) professional competency content in accordance with the dynamics of changes in the construction industry. It has been established that industry-specific further vocational education plays an important role in providing the transition of a construction industry specialist from externally regulated development to internally determined self-development, contributing to professional growth and maintaining competitiveness in the labour market. The research novelty is that professional development and self-development of specialists in the construction industry are for the first time understood as continuous, relatively independent, interpenetrating processes of personal transformation, having a moment of transition and meaningfully determined by the industry specifics. The article presents a new perspective on the periodisation of professional development and self-development of specialists. The results obtained give grounds for pedagogical mechanisms for supporting the professional growth of specialists at different career stages in the construction industry, which is relevant for improving further vocational education programmes in civil engineering universities.