Risks are becoming a natural part of our world today. The reasons behind the increasing levels of risks can be attributed to rapidly developing societies, extreme digitization, technification and informatization. Under the current conditions the education system faces the challenges of preparing new generations to deal with risks. Ian Kennedy and his colleagues see the ability to deal with risks as one of the key indicators of teachers’ professional preparedness (Kennedy, Latham & Jacinto, 2016).

This ability cannot be developed without preparing teachers to work in risky situations. The Russian school of thought supports the organization of risk-oriented teacher training through noxology – a separate scientific field that focuses on risks and their prevention developed by Belov and Devisilov. However, originally noxology was only introduced to educational programmes within technical specializations and teacher education programmes usually do not have a risk-oriented component.

In view of how important the capacity of teachers to deal with risk is nowadays for a successful teaching career, we have developed a model system of risk-oriented teacher training. The developed model has been tested at the Institute of Education of Kazan Federal University since 2013. The model of risk-oriented teacher training includes 1) the content component (it is comprised of theoretical seminars with a focus on most common risks and practical seminars organized with the use of simulation-based approaches, such as forum theatre, foresight session, etc.) and 2) the reflective component (it helps towards assessing the level of teachers’ preparedness to deal with risky situations at school). When developing the model we were taking into account two main sources of influence: university and school. Universities are often viewed as places that offers ‘ideal conditions’ for teaching and they often seek to find the best (top ranking) schools for student internships. Within our model we recommend working with ‘real’ schools as they offer a valuable insight into current educational risks. Through monitoring school life we collect relevant information about common risks. Then we use that information to construct simulation models which enable students to feel submerged into risky situations. At the same time game-based simulations that draw on real life situations happening at school can be used for assessing teachers’ preparedness to deal with risks.

Simulation-based game and non-game technologies are considered to be the main tools for implementing the model of risk-oriented teacher training. This can be explained by the fact that teacher education has activity-based, situational, and reflective components when it comes to the assessment of teacher preparedness for risk. Simulation requires student teachers to take on a role of teaching practitioners who are dealing with risks (conflicts among various subjects within the educational process). In this setting, students’ emotions and personal experiences of risk have an important role along with students’ motivation which determines their actions.

The main goal of this research project has been to test the effectiveness of the developed model of risk-based teacher training.

According to previous research conducted by Russian scholars teachers’ preparedness to deal with risk within a professional setting can be defined as ‘the noxological competency’. The structure of the noxological competency consists of situational, motivational, cognitive, activity-based, and reflective components. Thus, it is possible to test the effectiveness of the developed model by assessing students’ noxological competency. However, there is no one universally accepted assessment method that would take into account all the components of the noxological competency. In view of this we aim to find the most appropriate assessment tool that can be used for assessing the effectiveness of the risk-based teacher training model.

The theoretical framework of this study includes various works on health and safety skills and their development as well as works that specifically focus on the noxological competency (Devisilov, 2011; Abramova, 1996; Sabinina, 2011; Mikhailova, 2010; Prichinin, 2014). Devisilov (2011) was among the pioneers who highlighted the importance of occupational risks in Russia. He studied real threats as well as potential risks that people face at work. Educational risk studies in Russian can be viewed as a relatively new scientific field. The first person who significantly contributed to the development of this field was Abramova (1996). She highlighted the multilayered nature of the notion ‘risk’ and developed the concept of justified pedagogical risks and set the direction for further development of the activity-based approach within the field of education. Her ideas were later developed by Mikhailova (2010), Sabinina (2011), and Prichinin (2014) who proposed how to expand and specify the original classification of pedagogical risks. Educational risks studies examine the nature of risks and dangers. This academic field takes into account the nature of conflicts and their solutions through the lens of social psychology (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2015), works which study how conflicts affect the relationships in groups and their productivity (Smith et al., 2018), works which involve people who deal with conflicts (Havermans, Vanassche & Matthijs, 2017). The methodological foundation of the risk-oriented teacher education model was developed with the use of simulation-based game and non-game educational technologies. We drew on international studies conducted by Duke (1983), Middlewick, Kettle, Wilson (2012) as well as Russian literature (Panfilova, 2006; Plaksina, 2004). Our study had three main stages: Stage 1 – modeling and content development for the model of risk-oriented teacher education; Stage 2 – implementation of the model; Stage 3 – testing of the model’s effectiveness. More detailed explanations of Stages 1 and 2 were presented in our previous publications. In this study we will mainly focus on Stage 3. In view of the complex multilayered nature of the noxological competency it is important to assess it accordingly. We propose to assess it with the use of the following tests: Heim’s test of coping strategies (Bratchenko), Thomas’s test of describing behavior (adapted by Grishina), neuropsychic stability assessment test ‘prediction’, educational risks survey. The mathematical analysis of the findings was conducted with the use of the Spearman's correlation analysis and Fisher angular transformation.

This study can be viewed as an attempt to assess the practical effectiveness of the developed risk-oriented teacher training model. The experiment was organized with 214 people taking part: experimental group (62 students) and control group (152 students). The analysis had three stages: 1) The analysis of the findings collected when testing the effectiveness and working with both the experimental group and control group. 2) The application of F-test was used to establish what percentage of our sample has been affected. 3) Spearman's correlation analysis was conducted to identify how different variables are related to one another. After Spearman's correlation analysis we identified the following types of correlations: 1) Higher scores for the coping strategy ‘problem analysis’ correspond to higher scores for the strategy ‘collaboration’, higher number of behavior patterns in conflict situations within ‘collaboration’, neuropsychic stability, dialogical and indifferent types of personalities, and lower scores for behavior in conflict situations within ‘avoidance’. 2) Higher scores for neuropsychic stability correspond to more developed coping strategies ‘problem analysis’ and ‘meaning making’, indifferent personality type, and less developed coping strategies ‘suppression of emotion’ and ‘distraction’. This means that the students in the experimental group were more prone to collaborate and to use the coping strategy ‘problem analysis’. When dealing with conflicts these students seek constructive and professional collaborations and aspire to solve problems. 3) The indifferent personality type directly relates to the coping strategy ‘dissimulation’. This means that people with this personality type often demonstrate ‘dissimulation’ in professional interactions and it is viewed as an acceptable strategy to deal with risk. After the experiment the experimental group was less prone to suppress their emotions and more likely to choose the coping strategy ‘ignoring’. This all relates to medium and higher levels of the noxological competency and demonstrates conscientious attitude towards professional risk.

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