On December 18–19, 2023, a successful defense of diploma theses for the second (master’s) level of higher education of second-year students of the specialty 014 “Secondary Education (History)” of the OR “Master” (full-time study) took place. The examination commission consisted of the chairman – Prof. Raykivsky I.Ya., commission members – Prof. Zhernokleev O.S. and Assoc. Prof. Yegreshiy O.I., commission secretary – Paliychuk I.I. In total, 17 candidates for the educational level “Master” defended their works. The leading specialist of the Institute of History, Ethnology and Archaeology of the Carpathians Bohdan Paska took part in the work of the EC, who acted as the scientific supervisor of the diploma thesis of master’s student Vladyslav Lutsyk.
The qualification works were devoted to topical problems in the methodology of teaching history, the history of Ukraine, the native land, and world history. Most students paid attention to the justification of the choice of the research topic and its disclosure, confirmed their free mastery of the material, outlined the degree of independence in performing the work, and determined the personal contribution (scientific novelty) of the author to the work. The master’s degree applicants presented their own methodological developments, adapted for use in their further pedagogical activities during classroom and extracurricular classes in history and civic education lessons, optional and group work in secondary education institutions. Having prepared visualized presentations of the results of their research, the students skillfully behaved during the defense of their works, showed clarity, logic, consistency, and brevity of the presented material. At the same time, the competence and comprehensiveness of the young researchers’ answers to the questions of the members of the Examination Committee were observed, as well as the etiquette and culture of communication of the participants, and active qualified participation in the discussion.
The members of the Examination Commission noted the generally high scientific and methodological level of the vast majority of the works, their new, original, creative subject matter, diverse and representative source base, proper design of the bibliographical, scientific, and technical apparatus. Students acquire skills in scientific research, independent presentation of the material, skillfully formulate their conclusions. The Chairman of the Examination Commission, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of History of Ukraine and Methods of Teaching History I.Ya. Raykivskyi, emphasized the proper scientific and educational and methodological level of the majority of the diploma works, their creative, complete nature and compliance with the basic requirements for qualification works of this type. The Commission also noted a sufficiently high level of review of works at the departments (when positives and gaps are clearly indicated and specified) and the objectivity of the assessments offered by the reviewers, most of which were confirmed at the defense of the works before the EC.