Revising the Assessment of Creative Competence of Journalism Students

This study proposes an effective development methodology for evaluating the creativity of journalism students. Within the framework of university education, it is proposed to focus the attention of teachers on creating a special educational environment (media park), where progressive forms and methods of teaching, game methods are used systematically, in the context of the ecology of media processes. The peculiarity of the methodology is that at the end of the educational process (the creation of a specific media product by the students), its effectiveness is measured by comparing the initial and final indicators of the creative competence of student journalists. The author proposes to use S. Mednik’s speech-thinking creativity test, which is based on an assessment of the level of development of the student’s thinking and speech in their relationship, which is extremely important for future journalists. The article presents the results of the practical application of this type of assessment. The relevance and novelty of the problematic are due to the following circumstances. On the one hand, active forms and methods of teaching, including project activities, are widely used in universities, on the other hand, the methodology for assessing the creative competence of students is currently not well developed and is practically not used in the curriculum. It should also be recognized that the assessment of this competence and the products of creativity in general, which, of course, includes a journalistic text, is complex and ambiguous, since it is influenced by a large number of subjective factors. This article proposes one of the ways to resolve this contradiction.