Badawczo-naukowe obligacje dydaktycznych seminariów magisterskich

Abstract

Characteristics of MA seminars in Polish language and literature didactics allows us to attempt to identify those features that determine the seminars’ independence within the specialization course of studies. While respecting the indispensable literary-linguistic dualism, traditionally established in the Polish philology, didactic seminars by definition extend the scientific-research spectrum of primary disciplines with the necessary pedagogical, psychosocial, cultural, anthropological and philosophical contexts. Apart from their indispensable theoretical, frequently historical component, the majority of didactic MA theses include the empirical reconnaissance of modern problems in Polish teaching, which requires orientation in the specific nature of the undertaken research, and mastering additional methodological principles, as well as the student’s independence and great individual effort. The assumptions are exemplified on the basis of an analysis of about 1500 topics of MA theses, written in the fifty years of functioning of the Chair of Literature and Polish Language Didactics in the Polish Institute of the Pedagogical University of Krakow. Thematic formulae turn out to be a testimony of the evolution of thinking: of the subject didactics, its functions, and the thesis concepts. Being at the same time a record of accumulation of experience, they enable a confrontation of the old views on the relation between scientific and research tasks of Polish didactics seminars and the requirements of the modern education.