2.1. The concept of the methodology of educational science

Methodology — the study of structure, logical organization, methods and means of activity — is a necessary component of all activity. By virtue of this, the obligatory membership of any field of knowledge claiming to be a science is the existence of methodological foundations as a system of principles and methods of organizing and constructing theoretical and practical activities. In modern literature, the methodology is understood primarily as the doctrine of the principles of construction, forms and methods of scientific and cognitive activity.

The function of the methodological foundations is the internal organization and regulation of the process of cognition, the practical transformation of an object, the search for ways to carry out any activity. In the structure of the methodological foundations, it is customary to distinguish four levels:

1) philosophical, containing general principles of knowledge and the categorical structure of science as a whole;

2) general scientific, representing theoretical concepts applied to all or to most scientific disciplines;

3) specifically scientific, uniting a set of theoretical concepts used in a particular science;

4) technological , represented by a set of principles and research procedures within a specific science.

All levels of the methodology form a complex system, within which there is a certain subordination and interdependence.

Based on this understanding of the methodology, we will consider the content of the methodological foundations of education as follows:

• at the philosophical level, the methodological foundations of education are the concept of the driving forces and logic of the educational process;

• at the general scientific - scientific approaches;

• on the concrete-scientific - basic theories of education and personality development;

• on technology - laws and principles of education.